I am not a constitutional law expert, but I believe that under article 6 section 2 (the supremacy clause) treaties are held to be equal to the constitution. Thus, there is a very high bar for a treaty to by nullified based on contradicting the constitution. There is very little case law on this, and I believe the only instance in which an international executive agreement (not a treaty) was thrown out by the Supreme Court was Reid vs Covert. In that case, it was throw out on the grounds that it violated 5th and 6th amendment protections of Americans in foreign countries.
I don't understand how the United States could even form a treaty with a group of U.S. citizens born on U.S. soil.
Could I make a treaty with the U.S. that everyone in Connecticut loses their property and has to move to Utah? I was born in Connecticut. If the State of Connecticut explicitly rejected it, but I made a side deal with the Federal government?
In this specific case, the supreme Court ruled that the removal of the Cherokee was unconstitutional in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia [0].
Andrew Jackson said "John Marshall has made its decision, now let them enforce it" [1], violating the Court's decision and ordering the Trail of Tears.
He committed treason, this country was founded in genocide, and Jackson's portrait is proudly hung in the Oval Office. This is why I'm ashamed to be an American.
Yes, terrible things were done in the founding of America, but terrible things happened all over the world throughout history (including between warring native tribes). But what we need to take from this isn't that our ancestors were horrible human beings, but that they did wrong things and more importantly, we need to strive to learn from it, not repeat their mistakes and generally be better people.
> the current property "owners" are criminal trespassers in my view.
Then pretty much every single American is a trespassers because basically the entire United States (or North America in general) was settled by native American before the Europeans "discovered" it, and in most cases, they didn't sell them their land.
Sure, current "owners" would try to argue good faith hostile possession. Maybe they win.
It would be interesting to adjudicate whether kidnapping someone and removing them from their land and then selling it to another counts as a criminal conspiracy.
It would also be interesting to adjudicate whether "I didn't think I was stealing, because I don't believe that person is a human being with rights" counts as a good faith argument.
I could see it going either way, but I am excited to see how these cases are resolved. I hope they are brought in my lifetime. There is probably trillions of dollars of property implicated, at least half of which rightfully belongs to first nations people.
It may take some time for the Supreme Court eventually to rule on the matter, but the current property "owners" are criminal trespassers in my view.