Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group comprised of Arizona’s San Carlos Apache tribe and conservationists, asked the court to overturn a March ruling from a sharply divided San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the federal government to swap acreage with the mining companies for their Resolution Copper project.
The appeal to the nine justices was delivered in person by a courier after the Apache held a ceremony of prayer and dancing on the court’s steps in Washington, the culmination of a months-long caravan from their Arizona reservation to the capital.
At least four justices would need to agree to hear the appeal, in which Apache Stronghold and their attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty contend the government would be violating the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion if the mine is developed.
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