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- By Chez Oxendine
- Real Estate
A sweeping plan to cancel more than 7,500 leases under the General Services Administration (GSA) has begun to claim Native-serving government offices in six states.
The lease directive comes as part of major changes to federal operations under President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by tech mogul Elon Musk. The organization’s website points to cancelled leases for six Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices across Oklahoma, Utah, and Arizona, as well as four Indian Health Services offices in New Mexico, Minnesota, California and Oklahoma.
The same website lists closures for Farm Service Agency offices in North and South Dakota — where the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) serves numerous Native American producers.
In Oklahoma alone, five Native-serving offices are affected by the lease terminations, though the impact varies. A spokesperson for the Kiowa Tribe told CBS affiliate KWTV that the BIA office in Carnegie had been empty for multiple years, making the lease cancellation largely a formality. In Seminole, however, seven employees reportedly lost their jobs when that office was shuttered earlier this month, with phone lines now disconnected.
The lease cancellations appear to be part of a systematic effort outlined in a Feb. 26 Office of Management and Budget memorandum. The document, which provides guidance on agency workforce reduction and reorganization plans, calls for “a reduced real property footprint” as agencies implement the DOGE initiative. The memo instructs federal departments to “close and/or consolidate regional field offices to the extent consistent with efficient service delivery” while working to achieve “reduced budget topline targets.”
Former USDA and BIA staff who served during the Biden administration expressed concern that regional offices from both agencies would be shuttered as part of the DOGE effort, a move that would have significant impact on Native communities that rely on localized, in-person support for essential services related to economic development and Native agriculture.
When contacted by Tribal Business News today, the BIA provided this statement: "The Department of the Interior is committed to upholding federal responsibilities to tribal communities. Indian Affairs offices remain open and continue to provide services. The Department of the Interior is working with GSA to ensure facilities will be available for the continued delivery of BIA services."
‘A lot of confusion’
What this means for offices serving tribes — especially BIA and USDA outposts on reservations — remains unclear. Among the GSA’s portfolio of more than 8,300 buildings nationwide are 55 federally run Bureau of Indian Education schools and 83 on-reservation Bureau of Indian Affairs offices, as well as hundreds of USDA locations that provide essential services to Native farmers, ranchers and producers.
Wizipan Garriott, former principal deputy assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, told Tribal Business News the situation has created “a lot of confusion on multiple levels” as tribes grapple with whether or not trust obligations will continue being honored.
“People are asking a lot of questions,” Garriott said. “One, what are employees working remotely supposed to do? There’s been a push to get them to return to the office, but they could be shuttering those offices. And then we have to wonder about those who are receiving essential governmental services, especially those receiving services under treaty and trust responsibilities - that's more concerning.”
The GSA has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Tribal Business News.
Garriott said federal offices on reservations provide localized and in-person support that couldn’t be replicated through remote work, assuming the services weren’t shut down entirely by a lease termination. Functions such as leasing, land titles, and range management are central to many tribes’ economic development and agricultural operations.
“A lot of that happens in those offices, and I think if you would ask the people doing that work, I think they would tell you it's virtually impossible to not do the work in those offices,” Garriott said.
It’s not just Indian Country at risk, according to Janie Simms Hipp, CEO and President of ag credit nonprofit Native Agriculture Financial Services. Rural communities across the country could be “royally screwed” if GSA begins shuttering crucial local support, Hipp said.
“If you're just willy-nilly terminating leases, where is the conversation about disruption of services? It's not just tribes … everyone around us isn't going to have a prayer, either,” Hipp told Tribal Business News. “It's about anybody who lives rural and remote — they will literally be cut off from the possibility of walking into an office and getting a question answered.”
'A pretty good cause of action'
James Meggesto, partner at law firm Holland and Knight, told Tribal Business News that at least some of the leases tied to tribal services would be difficult or illegal to terminate outright. If a federally-recognized tribe owns a building, or the facility is used for services related to self-governance, the lease falls outside of standard procedure. Instead, the contract has its own statutes and rules under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975.
“If they were to breach that contract, that would not be legal, and tribes would have a pretty good case to seek reinstatement of the lease or damages or both,” Meggesto said. “I think it would be disruptive obviously, and I think tribes would have a pretty good cause of action.”
In addition to agency offices, GSA-managed buildings include federal courthouses, post offices, and data processing centers. All told, the organization manages 8,397 buildings across 2,200 communities in the United States. That includes USDA buildings in every county in the country - a crucial resource for especially remote or disconnected agriculture producers, Hipp said.
Eliminating USDA offices would severely impact rural communities across America, Hipp said. She noted that USDA has conducted numerous studies on office usage and visitor traffic, showing these locations provide essential services to people with limited internet access.
“There are places where you can make it more efficient, but without these offices, (a farmer) out there on his tractor with no internet is going to be cut off from USDA programs,” she said.
None of the Trump administration orders change the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations to tribes, Meggesto said. However, the rapid pace of the directives could lead to unintended disruptions.
“When they do things that are rushed … you create a situation where people on the ground trying to execute these orders tend to apply them overly broadly,” Meggesto said. “I don't think it should affect tribes, but I certainly can't say that it won't, in one way or other, have a very disruptive effect.”
Brian Edwards provided reporting.
