Herrera v. Wyoming, an Indian treaty-rights case argued in the Supreme Court last Tuesday, revolves around a basic of federal Indian law: No promise to Indian people actually binds the United States. Congress can unilaterally void any treaty or agreement. The only limit on this power so far has been a requirement that Congress say it is doing so. It is not supposed to act by “implication.” 

…Herrera and the tribe argue that the hunt was legal, because the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie guarantees the Crow “the right to hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States so long as game may be found thereon, and as long as peace subsists among the whites and Indians on the borders of the hunting districts.” When Herrera was brought to trial, however, the state court refused to hear his argument. The treaty, the court said, was invalid under a 120-year-old Supreme Court case.

Herrera v. Wyoming: Can U.S. Void Any Tribe’s Treaty? – The Atlantic

Why is this an issue? It’s so embarrassing to be a citizen of the United States sometimes…