## Facts

- Congress recognized the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in 1968 and assigned certain trust responsibilities to Texas.
- After Texas renounced those responsibilities, Congress enacted the Ysleta del Sur and Alabama and Coushatta Indian Tribes of Texas Restoration Act (1987).
- Section 107 of the Restoration Act provides that gaming activities “prohibited” by Texas law are prohibited on the Tribe’s lands, but also states that nothing in § 107 grants Texas civil or criminal “regulatory” jurisdiction; federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over violations.
- Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) (1988), which authorizes tribal Class II gaming (including bingo) in states that permit such gaming for any purpose by any person, organization, or entity, and requires compacts for Class III gaming.
- Texas permits bingo only under a limited, charitable regime and asserted that the Tribe’s bingo and electronic bingo operations violated Texas restrictions.
- Texas sued in federal court to enjoin the Tribe’s gaming, arguing the Restoration Act required compliance with Texas’s gaming regulations, not merely its categorical bans.
- The district court and the Fifth Circuit ruled for Texas, following circuit precedent treating Texas gaming laws and regulations as “surrogate federal law” applicable on the reservation.

## Issues

1. Whether § 107 of the Restoration Act incorporates only Texas laws that categorically forbid a gaming activity, or instead incorporates Texas’s broader regulatory regime governing permitted gaming.
2. Whether the Restoration Act displaces IGRA for the Pueblo’s bingo operations in a state that allows bingo subject to restrictions.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court vacated the Fifth Circuit’s judgment and remanded.
- Section 107 bans on tribal lands only those gaming activities that Texas law also bans outright.
- Section 107 does not incorporate Texas’s gaming regulations governing activities Texas allows (such as bingo) as binding federal law on the Tribe’s lands.
- Because Texas permits bingo in some form, § 107 does not itself bar the Tribe’s bingo; applicable federal limits are supplied by federal law, including IGRA.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory references to activities “prohibited” by state law are read as importing categorical bans, not regulatory restrictions that allow an activity subject to conditions.
- A statutory disclaimer that it grants no state “regulatory jurisdiction” is incompatible with an interpretation that gives the state regulatory control indirectly through wholesale incorporation of state regulations as federal law.
- For tribal gaming, when federal statutes coexist, courts should read them to operate together absent clear displacement; IGRA continues to govern permissible forms of tribal gaming where not categorically barred by another federal prohibition.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the Restoration Act adopts only Texas’s outright prohibitions as federal limits on the Pueblo’s lands and does not federalize Texas’s regulatory restrictions for gaming Texas permits, leaving the legality of permitted gaming to be assessed under federal law, including IGRA.


Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo v. Texas, 596 U.S. 685 (2022)