Caption : The Department of the Interior has withheld funding for Native American reservations until further notice because of the shutdown, which has significantly impacted education and nutrition on the reservations. These cuts are on top of the budget cuts the reservations currently operate on as a result of sequestration spending levels.

Caption : The Department of the Interior has withheld funding for Native American reservations until further notice because of the shutdown, which has significantly impacted education and nutrition on the reservations. These cuts are on top of the budget cuts the reservations currently operate on as a result of sequestration spending levels.

More than 560 federally recognized Native American reservations fell on financial hardships earlier this year in March when government sequestration created budget cuts of $800,000 to their funding. Now, due to the recent government shutdown, these reservations have spiraled even deeper into the financial hole.

The Department of the Interior has withheld funding until further notice because of the shutdown, which has left reservations at a standstill. According to the Department of the Interior, the department invests $500 million to improve federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native communities by fixing schools, upgrading housing, building roads, and creating jobs. Additionally, it is also responsible for providing vital services on the reservations that include nutrition programs and financial assistance for education.

ThinkProgress reported the nutrition programs provide food to about 76,500 people a month in an estimated 276 tribes; the shutdown has cut off funding for this nutrition program.

In addition to the termination of the nutrition program, many students will not receive financial assistance to attend school. The Department of the Interior also indicates that it invests $134.6 million on school-replacement construction and $143.1 million in school improvements and repairs. About 42,000 students attend these schools.

Ed Alexander, the second chief of the Gwichyaa Zhee band of Gwich’in Indians who lives in Fort Yukon, AK, told Al Jazeera America that the shutdown was “hurting students who have not yet received scholarship money they need for faraway universities.”

Since many Native American reservations rely in part on government funding, the shutdown and previous cuts from sequestration have had a serious impact on the entire community.

“It is unconscionable that the federal government will come to a complete halt due to a few unreasonable members of Congress,”Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly, who leads the largest Indian reservation in the country, also told Al Jazeera America. “They have one primary role, to fund the government, and they need to do their job.”