ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – An Oklahoma-based American Indian tribe is challenging a recent decision by federal gambling officials that prohibits the tribe from conducting gambling on its land in southern New Mexico.

The Fort Sill Apache Tribe contends in a motion filed late last week that the decision made by the National Indian Gaming Commission in May is contrary to law and violates a 2007 settlement between the federal government and the tribe.

In moving to amend its original complaint, the tribe also is adding the federal government and the U.S. Interior Department as defendants in the case.

"It’s the latest of a long string of broken promises by the U.S. since its agreement with Geronimo in 1886 to return our people to their homeland after two years of imprisonment," said Jeff Haozous, Fort Sill Apache tribal chairman. "We are asking the court to compel the defendants to uphold this latest agreement that was made with us so that at long last our people can return to their rightful home."

A spokeswoman with the Interior Department said the agency would not be able to comment on the pending litigation.

Members of the Fort Sill Apache tribe are descended from the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches, who lived in southern New Mexico and Arizona until removed by the federal government in the late 1880s. They were sent to Florida, Alabama and later to Oklahoma.

The federal government designated a 30-acre parcel in southern New Mexico as the tribe’s reservation in 2011, but the Apache governmental offices are in Oklahoma.

The land near Deming, New Mexico, has been held in trust for the tribe since 2002, and the tribe wants to operate a casino there.

The tribe acknowledges that the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act generally prohibits gambling on trust lands acquired after 1988. However, it argues that the rule doesn’t apply to land restored for a tribe that is federally recognized or land that was part of the tribe’s initial reservation.

In making its decision, the gaming commission cited a 2001 letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which approved the tribe’s acquisition of the New Mexico land. The BIA’s letter cited a 1999 resolution from Fort Sill’s Tribal Council saying the tribe "was removing gaming as a purpose for this acquisition."

Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration also has pointed to commission’s decision in rejecting the tribe’s efforts.

Aside from the case pending in federal court, the tribe has asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to reconsider its recent ruling not to force Martinez to sign a gambling compact with the tribe.

The 2007 settlement agreement the tribe points to stems from a dispute with the Comanche Nation over the acquisition of trust land within the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache reservation in Oklahoma for the purpose of gambling.

The tribe contends it agreed at the time to relinquish its gambling rights in Oklahoma in return for the prospect of ultimately being able to open a casino in southern New Mexico.

While the Interior Department can’t grant gambling rights in a settlement agreement, the tribe said it asked and the agency agreed to assist the tribe in qualifying its New Mexico land for the exceptions under the federal law that would allow for a casino.