The Agua Caliente tribe in Palm Springs, the Morongo tribe near Banning and the Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians in Coachella, which owns the Spotlight 29 Casino, all have endorsed the plan. Their ties to the Torres-Martinez tribe date back thousands of years. They traded together and intermarried, and they shared goods and crops in hard times. The Torres-Martinez reservation sits 10 miles from the nearest supermarket, surrounded by farmland and rundown mobile home parks and in some cases bordered by the sea itself. A historic wooden school and a home and office for Indian agents sit empty and crumbling near portable offices.
Some members live in old trailers and others in modular homes in the Thermal area.
About half the members are on welfare and about four of every five members do not finish high school, Belardo said. The federal government created desert reservations in the years after the Civil War. The Torres and Martinez tribes lived nearby in the Thermal area. They eventually merged. The land dispute dates to 1905, when the Colorado River breached a canal and filled a vast salt basin about 250 feet below sea level.