The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Massachusetts casino project has been thrown into doubt after the tribe withdrew its request for federal recognition of its land rights.

On Tuesday, Mashpee Wampanoag representatives issued a statement saying the tribe was no longer seeking a Department of Interior opinion on whether land taken into trust by the federal government in 2015 qualified for continued sovereign land status. The Department’s opinion was expected to be issued on Tuesday.

Last year, a federal judge ruled that the government erred by taking the land into trust, so the Department of Interior began an investigation into whether the land – 170 acres in Mashpee and 151 acres near East Taunton – qualified for sovereign control status under a different legal category.

The East Taunton acreage south of Boston is the prospective home of the tribe’s First Light Resort & Casino, but East Taunton residents aren’t wild about having a casino in their backyard and their legal challenge led to last year’s federal court ruling blocking the plan.