Cite as: 521 U. S. 261 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
III
We now turn to consider whether the Tribe may avoid the Eleventh Amendment bar and avail itself of the Young exception. Although the "difference between the type of relief barred by the Eleventh Amendment and that permitted under Ex parte Young will not in many instances be that between day and night," Edelman, 415 U. S., at 667, this suit, we decide, falls on the Eleventh Amendment side of the line, and Idaho's sovereign immunity controls.
The Tribe has alleged an ongoing violation of its property rights in contravention of federal law and seeks prospective injunctive relief. The Tribe argues that it should therefore be able to avail itself of the Ex parte Young fiction. Moreover, the Tribe points to the plurality decision in Florida Dept. of State v. Treasure Salvors, Inc., 458 U. S. 670 (1982) (opinion of Stevens, J.), where we allowed a Federal District Court to issue a warrant commanding state officials to turn over various artifacts (mainly treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon) to the United States Marshal despite the State's claim of sovereign immunity.
An allegation of an ongoing violation of federal law where the requested relief is prospective is ordinarily sufficient to invoke the Young fiction. However, this case is unusual in that the Tribe's suit is the functional equivalent of a quiet title action which implicates special sovereignty interests. We do not think Treasure Salvors, supra, is helpful to the Tribe because the state officials there were acting beyond the authority conferred upon them by the State, id., at 696- 697, a theory the Tribe does not even attempt to pursue in the case before us. We must examine the effect of the Tribe's suit and its impact on these special sovereignty interests in order to decide whether the Ex parte Young fiction is applicable.
It is common ground between the parties, at this stage of the litigation, that the Tribe could not maintain a quiet title suit against Idaho in federal court, absent the State's con-
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