Iroquois lacrosse team denied visas by U.K.

The British government has refused to allow an Iroquois lacrosse team to travel to England using passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy.

The decision Wednesday means the team will miss a world championship lacrosse competition in Manchester.

A British Consulate spokeswoman says the team would be able to travel only with documents the United Kingdom considers valid.

Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a member of the Onondaga Nation who works with the team, says it was told by British officials that members would have to use U.S. or Canadian passports to travel to Britain.

The decision was announced hours after the U.S. cleared the team for travel on a one-time waiver at the behest of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The 23 players have passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy, a group of six Indian nations overseeing land that stretches from upstate New York into Ontario.

The U.S. government had said it would only let players back into the country if they have U.S. passports, a team official said. The British government, meanwhile, wouldn't give the players visas if they could not guarantee they'd be allowed to go home..

Iroquois team members born within U.S. borders have been offered U.S. passports, but the players refuse to carry them because they see the government-issued documents as an attack on their identity, Frichner said earlier this week.

"It's about sovereignty, citizenship and self-identification," said Frichner, who also is the North American regional representative to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The Iroquois have used their own passports in the past, but U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the new dispute can be traced to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which went into effect last year. The new rules require, among other things, that Americans carry passports or high-tech documents to cross the country's borders.

One Iroquois player, Brett Bucktooth, said he would rather miss the tournament than travel under a U.S. passport.

"That's the people we are, and that's our identity," he said.

Ahem - Sovereignty and citizenship were well established, whether right or wrong, by the countries of Canada and USA a long time ago. If they are allowed to issue passports, then why not Quebec who consider themselves a separate soverign govt?

As above, the problem is from new rules of travel, so there is nothing they can do about it.

These guys are being too political, instead of just being athletes. I know that USSR boycotted US Olympics, and vice-versa; but they were assholes for doing it.

They should just accept their Canadian/US passports and travel for competition and to display their culture.