North Stonington — The chairwoman of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Council vows the tribe will “stand firm” in its bid to have the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs declare it a federally recognized tribe.

Katherine Sebastian Dring issued a statement Tuesday night in response to a letter the tribe received from R. Lee Fleming, director of the Department of the Interior’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment.

Fleming informed the tribe that the department no longer accepts requests for acknowledgment from entities that previously were denied.

Federal acknowledgment, or recognition, makes a tribe eligible for federal aid as well as to have land taken into trust for economic development, including casinos.

In a petition filed last month, the tribe argued that the BIA’s 2002 decision recognizing the Eastern Pequot Indians and the Paucatuck Eastern Pequot Indians as the Historical Eastern Pequot Tribe should be "reaffirmed."

The decision, appealed by the state and the towns of Ledyard, North Stonington and Preston, was reversed in 2005.

New federal recognition regulations adopted last year bar groups that have been denied recognition from re-petitioning.

“We will appeal the BIA decision prohibiting our right to petition under the new federal acknowledgment regulations as a previously acknowledged tribe and denying our constitutional rights of due process and equal protection of the law,” Sebastian Dring said.

“We will continue to fight for justice for the nation in honor of our ancestors and the seven generations yet unborn," she said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com