tribe for underlying Tribal Trust Land. Eligibility for such subleases were limited to enrolled tribal members. The council said that growth in the tribe meant these houses were needed for Nooksack members. They notified 61 former members (of the 306 disenrolled) that they would have to leave this housing. Twenty-one homes had been federally funded under a program with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many George descendants had occupied such housing for more than a decade and, in some cases nearly completed a lease-to-own program, making payments to the tribe. Galanda, who continues to dispute the legality of the disenrollment of the 360, has suggested that the tribe violated due process in proposing eviction. The tribe had to comply with federal civil rights law for units built with federal funding. The case has gained renewed federal attention from both the Department of Interior and HUD. They initiated an investigation in fall 2021 related to civil rights issues and accounting for payments from tenants to the tribe for this housing. Despite appeals, in December 2021 the tribe was set to evict 61 former members, and two of their children who were enrolled members. Ross Cline, Sr. serves as the current tribal chairman. In December 2021, the Nooksack 306 through Galanda appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "seeking to have that organization intervene, review the situation and ask the Biden administration to immediately take steps to halt the evictions." UN rapporteurs, or monitors, traveled to Whatcom County to review the issues and also consulted with related US agencies. "Balakrishnan Rajagopal is the special rapporteur on adequate housing, and Francisco Cali Tzay is the special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples." In early February 2022 they called on the US government to prevent eviction of the families. Galanda said this was the first case he knew of in which UN monitors reviewed a dispute within an indigenous tribe. Demographics As of the 2000 census, the Nooksack Indian Reservation, at in Whatcom County, had a resident population of 547 persons living on ) of land. Of these residents, 373 persons, or 68.2 percent, identified as being solely of Native American ancestry. Language The Nooksack language (Lhéchalosem) belongs to the Salishan family of Native American languages, and is most similar to the Halkomelem language of British Columbia, of which it was once considered a dialect. Until the mid-20th