Trump signs Lumbee recognition into law, capping tribe’s decades-long effort

A bill signing in the Oval Office Thursday evening ended a 137-year battle by a North Carolina tribe for federal recognition.

Behind closed doors, away from the media, President Donald Trump signed into law federal recognition with full benefits for the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. It fulfills a 2024 campaign promise he made in North Carolina.

The White House media pools were not permitted into the room when the bill was signed. The measure was part of a larger bill called the National Defense Authorization Act, that sets the policy and spending levels for the Department of Defense.

Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from Southern Pines, posted a photograph of himself with Lumbee Chairman John Lowery at the White House for the moment.

“It was a historic day, and long overdue,” Hudson wrote on social media. “Grateful to President Trump for finally delivering full federal recognition and fairness for the Lumbee people.”

The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina has 60,000 members and is the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River. They’re located in Robeson, Scotland, Hoke and Cumberland counties.

Since 1888, they’ve been fighting for federal recognition, but have faced strong opposition from other tribes, including the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, located in Western North Carolina. The Eastern Band pumped an enormous amount of spending into lobbying efforts against the Lumbee, arguing the tribe should have gone through the Bureau of Indian Affairs for recognition. And the Cherokee have questioned the legitimacy of the Lumbee Tribe’s heritage, culture and race.

Despite that, the Lumbee has had strong bipartisan support from Trump, former Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole, Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, all Republicans, and former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and the late Sen. Kay Hagan, all Democrats.

All of North Carolina’s U.S. House members supported recognition, with the exceptions of Republican Reps. Chuck Edwards and Virginia Foxx. Both represent areas of Western North Carolina that the Eastern Band call home.

Congress ignored requests from the Lumbee for federal recognition until 1956, when lawmakers acknowledged the tribe but added policy into law that they were not eligible for federal benefits.

The tribe believed it would take an act of Congress to undo the 1956 law.

At Trump’s Wilmington campaign rally he announced that he believed the Lumbee Tribe had been “wrongly denied federal recognition.”

“Today I am officially announcing that if I am elected in November, I will sign legislation granting the great Lumbee Tribe the federal recognition that it deserves,” Trump said.

One of Trump’s first acts in his second term in office was to order a study on a legal path forward for the tribe to get federal recognition.

The report has never been publicized, and a Freedom of Information Act request from McClatchy went unfulfilled. But many speculated that the report also found a congressional act was needed.

Now, 70 years after the 1956 bill passed, Tillis wrestled with how to ensure the tribe was recognized before he retires in 2027. He knew a single senator could block a stand-alone bill.

So Tillis worked with Budd and Rep. David Rouzer, a Republican from Wilmington, to get the measure into the National Defense Authorization Act.

“President Donald Trump pledged to get this done, and he kept that promise,” Tillis said in a news release after the signing. “By signing the Lumbee Fairness Act into law, a historic injustice has been corrected, and the Lumbee people can finally access the full federal benefits they have long earned and deserve.”

Senators had passed the NDAA Wednesday afternoon, while 80 members of the tribe watched from the chamber’s gallery.

They offered each other fist bumps and high-fives, then went to Tillis’ office to celebrate what took 137 years to get done.

This story was originally published December 18, 2025 at 7:11 PM.

Danielle Battaglia

McClatchy DC

Danielle Battaglia is the congressional impact reporter for The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer, leading coverage of the impact of North Carolina’s congressional delegation and the White House. Her career has spanned three North Carolina newsrooms where she has covered crime, courts and local, state and national politics. She has won two McClatchy President’s awards and numerous national and state awards for her work.