North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe has sought federal recognition for over a century. A provision included this week in a defense spending bill in Congress would give it to them — and could be voted on within days.

Rep. Mark Harris, a Republican whose district is home to a large portion of the Lumbee Tribe, said in a statement that he and his colleagues had “used every tool at our disposal to secure recognition in this year’s (National Defense Authorization Act).”

“I’m deeply grateful to President Trump for his longstanding championship of the Lumbee Tribe and for working across both chambers of Congress to deliver the full federal recognition and rights our people deserve,” Harris continued.

With 60,000 members across Robeson, Hoke, Scotland and Cumberland counties, the Lumbee is the largest tribe east of the Mississippi River and the ninth-largest tribe in the country.

Federal recognition would bring funding for education and health care to the tribe, as well as potentially allow it to open casinos — a business banned throughout most of the state except on tribal lands.

The House is expected to vote on the 3,086-page bill with the Lumbee provision on Wednesday, according to Politico. It would then need to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president.

It’s a compromise version of a bill that has already passed the House, with Lumbee recognition, and the Senate, without it.

Trump has supported recognition for the tribe, instructing the Department of Interior to move toward that goal in one of the first executive orders of his second term.

But while Lumbee recognition has come close to passing in the past, it has never made it across the finish line.

And while most of North Carolina’s lawmakers on both sides of the aisle support the effort, other Native American tribes have pushed back against recognition for the Lumbee.

In a statement on Monday, Principal Chief Michell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians said that the Lumbee Tribe “has not met the historical and legal standards required of sovereign tribal nations.”

“Once recognition is granted without an evidentiary review, the standing of all federally acknowledged tribal nations becomes more vulnerable to political shifts rather than being anchored in history and law,” Hicks continued. “We are asking Congress to scrutinize this and to ensure that decisions of this magnitude remain grounded in documentation and established policy.”

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