Lakeport >> Though he may not be old enough to read the sign he held, 2-year-old Ryan Henscher has just as much at stake as many of the protesters out in Lakeport Tuesday afternoon.

According to his mother, Jessica Brown, her family represent some of the Elem Indian Colony Pomo tribal members who have received notices of disenrollment in the mail.

Lead by James Brown, who received a notice of his own, protesters chanted slogans including “native lives matter” and “disenrollment is tribal genocide,” a slogan written on his Brown’s shirt with genocide written in a bright, blood red.

The group of about two dozen people on Main Street in Lakeport were challenging the wave of cuts in Elem tribal membership, which they say strips them of not only of funds and services such as housing and health care, but of their own cultural identity. By no longer being recognized as tribal members they lose the connection, the knowledge and the traditions of their past and ancestors that comes with the status.

Figures vary, but as many as 35 Native American Pomo Indians from the Clearlake Oaks tribe have received the notices since late last month, sent apparently by tribal leadership.

“We are being told we are no longer in the tribe,” Jessica Brown said. “We are the ones who keep the traditions alive and this is what they do to us.”

Those involved in the protest say the disenrollment of members is contrary to tribal law, and the six-page list of accusations accompanying the document to justify the action is nothing but lies.

Instead, they say disenrollment is being used as a tool to target known critics, and their families, of the sitting tribal council. Some are people who voted for a new executive committee at the Nov. 8, 2014 elections.

The current government certified just 54 votes to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), according to challengers, but they allege another 60 people cast ballots for a new tribal council. These, they claim, were never officially submitted.

San Francisco based attorney Little Fawn Boland is representing the group facing disenrollment and currently challenging the election results with the federal Interior Board of Indian Appeals.

“The Elem Indian Colony of Pomo Indians learned that as punishment for not supporting the Tribe’s purported government they are being stripped of their citizenship,” she stated in a press release on April 3.

Boland says that the disenrollment process is unconstitutional because it’s based on an ordinance the tribal council passed without following rules outlined. The governing document states the council must first have approval of the United States Secretary of the Interior before making changes to membership but did not do so, Boland said.

Troy Burdick, superintendent of the Central California Agency, BIA under the U.S. Department of the Interior, verified in an email correspondence with Boland that they had no evidence the ordinance was submitted to the office for review and approval.

In a brief interview following Boland’s statements in early April, Elem tribal chairman Agustin Garcia said the council had no comment. Adding that if the council wanted to make a statement, it would do so through a letter from its attorney.

Tuesday’s protest was the second this month. Elem tribal members facing disenrollment staged a three-day protest in Ukiah with Pomo Indians from related tribes in Lake and Mendocino counties April 6, 7 and 8 outside the law office of an attorney for the Elem tribal council.

James Brown said they are hoping to plan more protests in public spaces to raise awareness of disenrollment among the non-Indian community of what he and supports say is a clear injustice.