Iroquois Nationals will try again to reach lacrosse championships in England

The team has booked a 4 p.m. flight, unsure if they'll be allowed to board.

View full sizeRamin Talaie/The New York TimesJeremy Thompson of the Iroquois national lacrosse team stretches on a field with teammates during a practice session at Wagner College in New York, on July 12, 2010. The Iroquois helped invent lacrosse, but a passport dispute could prevent them from competing in the world championships.

New York City – The Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team has booked another flight in hope that diplomatic officials today will allow members traveling on Haudenosaunee passports to travel to the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships in England and return.

“We’re still in a holding pattern. We’re still waiting to see,” team General Manager Ansley Jemison said this morning.

The team booked a 4 p.m. flight to Amsterdam on Delta Air Lines for this afternoon, anticipating that the diplomatic logjam surrounding the trip would break up, and plans to leave for Kennedy International Airport at noon to board it, Jemison said.

The team booked the same flight Tuesday but was not allowed to board.

After that, the team practiced at a Long Island field lined up by Tim Byrnes, a teammate of Jemison’s at Syracuse University, then signed autographs, Jemison said.

The team’s situation has drawn international attention.

A Nationals representative this morning released a statement from Chief Wilton Littlechild, representing the World Indigenous Nations Sports Inc. and other North American native organizations, to a United Nations human rights council saying the U.S. government was violating the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and that the matter should be investigated.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, and Rep. Dennis Kuchinich, D-Ohio, are among elected officials who have demanded action from the departments of State and Homeland Security.

Iroquois members have used Haudenosaunee passports for about three decades, but an international travel rule change under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative has complicated things.

Under the initiative, the ability of Native Americans to use tribal documents ended on June 1, 2009, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Web site. An “enhanced tribal card” that complies with the initiative is under development, the site says.

As a result, the U.S. government has turned down British requests for assurance that members traveling with Haudenosaunee passports would be allowed back into the United States after the international tournament, leading British officials to deny them visas.

The State Department has offered to rush U.S. passports to the affected team members, but they have turned them down, in part because of the sovereignty issue it represents, in part because the team must present Haudenosaunee credentials at the championship.

No treaty obligations are being violated, State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said this morning.