In retrospect, it seems odd that the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team didn&#8217t run into

this problem before, given the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the nature of bureaucracies. This

week, it did. Get these players to their competition today, and sort out larger questions

later.

Great Britain had denied the team visas to compete in the quadrennial world championships in

Manchester because the U.S. government wouldn&#8217t guarantee that team members would be

allowed back into this country. The team has historically traveled on passports issued by the

Iroquois Confederacy, but this year the State Department decided those locally issued

passports don&#8217t meet the technology requirements of modern border documentation.

Team members refuse to accept U.S. passports, based on Iroquois sovereignty. Thus, the

athletes were left in the lurch, risking the once-in-a-lifetime chance to compete

internationally in the game their ancestors invented.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, began work with the State Department to resolve the issue.

One approach would have been for the department to issue letters that would offer the

guarantee the British need. It would resolve the issue without entering the thicket of federal

authority versus Iroquois sovereignty and seemed a sensible way out of this difficulty. Late

Wednesday, there was word the State Department, with the intervention of former senator and

now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would allow travel under the Senecas&#8217 own

passports. But British authorities later denied the team entry.

But larger questions do need to be considered in the calm of the competition&#8217s

aftermath. In the post-9/11 world, will anything other than a U.S. passport offer the security

the nation needs? Will Native Americans be adequately protected when traveling abroad on their

own nation&#8217s passports?If the answer to either question is no, how can those issues be

squared with the amorphous nature of sovereignty for Native Americans? Can there be technical

help with better Haudenosaunee passports?

First things first, though. The competition is about to begin. Iroquois athletes have been

traveling to it on Iroquois passports for 20 years. They had been given no reason to suspect

there would be any problems this time.

Nothing would have been gained by preventing these athletes from traveling. Get them to

Manchester, bring them home, then sort out the issues.