http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9GTLP9O0&show_article=1
The Iroquois helped invent lacrosse, but their team might not travel to England for the sport's world championship because of a dispute over the validity of their passports.
The 23 players have passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy, a group of six Indian nations overseeing land that stretches from upstate New York into Ontario, Canada.
The U.S. government says it will only let players back into the country if they have U.S. passports, a team official said. The British government, meanwhile, won't give the players visas if they cannot guarantee they'll be allowed to go home, the official said.
The Iroquois team members born within U.S. borders have been offered U.S. passports, but the players refuse to carry them, because they see the government-issued documents as an attack on their identity, said Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a member of the Onondaga Nation who works with the team.
"It's about sovereignty, citizenship and self-identification," said Frichner, who also is the North American Regional Representative to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to discuss the specifics of the case. Matt Chandler, a Homeland Security spokesman, said his agency was working with other entities, including the Department of State, to resolve the issue. Messages left for State Department officials weren't immediately returned.
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