Nebraska, Iowa congressional delegations back plan to return undeveloped federal land to Winnebago Tribe

Nebraska and Iowa's congressional delegations have declared their support for legislation that would return undeveloped federal land to the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.

"The Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to condemn and seize land from the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska was a classic case of government overreach," Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, of Nebraska, said in a statement last week. "My colleagues in the Nebraska and Iowa delegations and I want to see this wrong corrected, and the land returned to the Winnebago people."

In recent years, some tribes in the U.S., Canada and Australia have gotten their rights to ancestral lands restored with the growth of the Land Back movement, which seeks to return land to Indigenous people. Minnesota is in the process of returning to the Upper Sioux Community tribe part of a state park that holds secret burial sites of the Dakota people.