A group of Kahnawake residents is filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over the territory's Marry-Out, Move-Out law.

The law designed to forbid non-Mohawks from living in Kahnawake was created in 1981 by the band's council and has been enforced to varying degrees over the past 34 years.

In 2010 many so-called "mixed couples" received eviction notices which were never acted on, but in the past year the band has increased pressure on natives living with non-natives to move out of the territory southeast of Montreal.

Now the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations is assisting five people in filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission demanding they be allowed to stay.

Fo Niemi of CRARR is assisting with the legal challenge.

"They're not entitled to housing, they cannot access healthcare, they can't vote. they can't attend certain band council [meetings]," said Niemi. "There's a lot of equal opportunities, equal access that's been denied."

He said many of the people being ordered off the territory were born to aboriginal and non-aboriginal parents after the law came into effect in 1981.

"There's a whole new generation now, in their twenties and thirties who realize that this is discrimination. a residual discrimination based on the previous colonial system and other laws of Canada and that they are not experiencing this and that's why they want to change.

The federal and provincial Indian Affairs ministers have spoken out against the discriminatory Kahnawake law but have yet to take steps to strike it down.

Kahnawake Grand Chief Joe Norton, who helped draft the law, said it is essential for preserving the Mohawk culture.

"From a cultural point of view, from a language point of view, (it's) the protection of all those things we hold dear to ourselves," he said, adding. "The point is the non-native spouse. Thats' where the action is. That person is not allowed to reside in this community, male or female. It's something that stands right now, I don't ever see that changing , anyway not in my lifetime, but who knows what the future holds."

Niemi said he believes a Human Rights Commission challenge will be successful because the HRC now applies to all First Nations communities in Canada, and has done so since 2011.

He also said the five people making the challenge wish to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisals.

Last summer the band compiled a list of 200 people who were violating the ban, and several of those ordered to leave began a court challenge of the law.

Tensions seemed to die down over the winter, but last month protesters forced Amanda Deer, her husband and their 11-year-old son out of their Kahnawake home.

In May, Deer described the crowd as a mob that tried to break into her home. Some of the protesters later told reporters they were not upset about the mixed-race couple, but because Deer's husband had recently been released from prison.