The climate movement gave this Texas tribe millions and a global platform. No one checked its story.
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- Juan Mancias and Sierra Club campaigner Bekah Hinojosa traveled to France in May 2017, appearing in Le Monde and Radio France and meeting President Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic advisors to pressure BNP Paribas and Société Générale to stop financing U.S. oil and gas projects including the $18 billion Rio Grande LNG terminal and Rio Bravo Pipeline.
- An extensive review of historical and genealogical records found that key documents underpinning Mancias' claimed Carrizo/Comecrudo descent "contain significant historical inconsistencies and cannot be verified or authenticated," with his platform resting instead on family lore.
- Since the 2017 trip, Mancias has raised more than $5 million from major philanthropic foundations and partnered with Earthjustice and the World Monuments Fund, while engaging with several UN agencies against oil and gas terminals, Trump's border wall, and SpaceX.
- The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas lacks federal and state recognition, yet has operated in the public eye as a tribal nation, partnering with major environmental groups and UN human rights bodies.
- Kyle Whyte, a Citizen Potawatomi Nation member and climate justice scholar at the University of Michigan, said the elevation of unverified Indigenous groups is "completely undermining the potential that tribal nations" have as major players in climate action.
- Les Amis de la Terre France defended the 2017 campaign, saying Mancias was "clearly recognized as a representative of Indigenous communities" at the time and that opposition to LNG financing remains valid "regardless of his origins or ancestry."
Why it matters: The investigation exposes a shadow recognition system in which environmental groups, journalists, and UN bodies elevated an unverified Indigenous identity as a moral front against fossil fuels, channeling $5 million-plus from major foundations to the group. Whyte warned this dynamic is "completely undermining" tribal nations' standing as climate players — a structural risk to legitimate Indigenous-led campaigns.
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