Tribal Leaders Press Lawmakers for Solutions to Solve MMIW Crisis

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By Emma Richman

November 21, 2024

WASHINGTON – Native American tribal leaders urged lawmakers to increase federal funding and implement national reporting systems to help solve the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) on Wednesday.

At a House Appropriations Subcommittee meeting, lawmakers heard testimony from tribal representatives and federal agency officials, expressing bipartisan support for allocating funds toward solutions.

“We have to write a check, and I want to make sure they get the resources they need,” said House Appropriations Chairman Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.

The crisis of MMIW has gained attention through grassroots movements over the past decade. Native American women face disproportionately higher rates of disappearance and murder compared to the national average, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). A National Institute of Justice report in 2016 found that more than four in five Native women face violence in their lifetime. 

Before the panelists gave their testimony, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, pointed out an empty witness chair at the end of the table.

“That’s to represent the missing and murdered Indigenous women across this country,” Simpson said. “They’re listening.”

Five female Native witnesses told the committee their personal stories of violence, rape and murder. They described the difficulties of getting justice under a legal system that creates a loophole for perpetrators of violent crimes against Native people.

Ranking Member Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said that the BIA estimates that there are approximately 4,200 MMIW cases that have gone unsolved, and less than half of victimization cases are even recorded.

The MMIW crisis is exacerbated by legal jurisdiction issues, said Margo Hill-Ferguson, professor of urban and regional planning and director of American Indian Studies at Eastern Washington University

Under federal law, tribal courts cannot prosecute bad actors who commit major crimes like murder, rape and arson on tribal land, Hill-Ferguson said. Instead, they rely on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate these crimes and the U.S. Attorney’s office to prosecute.

Hill-Ferguson grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and served as the in-house attorney for the Spokane Tribe for more than a decade. She experienced first-hand the legal barriers to holding perpetrators accountable.

“As the tribal attorney, I received letters of declination where the U.S. Attorney's Office was declining to prosecute very violent crimes on the reservation,” Hill-Ferguson said.

These jurisdiction issues are the primary reason why so many MMIW cases go uninvestigated.

Eugenia Charles-Newton, a delegate on the Navajo Nation council, said she remembers waking up in a shack unable to see, tied up by a man who had given her a Coke. He held her there for nearly nine days, raped her repeatedly and beat her. She was 17 years old.

But this man was never prosecuted for his crimes because Charles-Newton didn’t know the exact location of the shed, and therefore law enforcement couldn’t determine the jurisdiction. That man walks free today, she said, and Charles-Newton represents him on the Council.

“A lot of cases don’t ever get to see justice because nobody wants to work the cases,” Charles-Newton said. “Everybody wants to say it belongs to somebody else.”

Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute and member of the Pawnee Nation, reiterated Charles-Newton’s points about jurisdiction issues and emphasized the need for measures to apply to Native people in urban areas as well as on reservations.

The gray areas of jurisdiction and lack of law enforcement invite bad actors to commit crimes against Natives on tribal land where they’re less likely to be caught or punished, Echo-Hawk said.

Some federal action has been taken on the MMIW crisis. Speakers cited the 1996 Violence Against Women Act, as well as the more recent Savanna’s and Not Afraid Acts, which passed in 2020.

Speakers proposed several measures to increase awareness and accountability including a national alert system specifically for missing Native people and a cross-deputization bill that would allow tribal, state and local police to work across boundaries.

Charles-Newton emphasized the need for more law enforcement in tribal nations. The Navajo Nation only has an estimated 218 police officers for a population of roughly 200,000, she said. The nation would need over double that number to meet the national average. 

Federal agency officials called for increased funding for BIA and the new Missing and Murdered Unit, established in 2021 by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

In terms of bridging the gap between Natives and federal law enforcement, Hill-Ferguson said there’s some hope. U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref, for one, has been working across jurisdictions in eastern Washington to prosecute drug dealers, she said. Waldref added Assistant U.S. Attorney Bree Black Horse to her team in February, who is dedicated to prosecuting MMIW cases.

Hill-Ferguson said that most of the progress made already in the MMIW crisis is because of grassroots efforts of Native women who call for “No More Stolen Sisters.”

Despite the recent efforts of the federal government, Echo-Hawk said that implementation of the Savanna’s and Not Afraid Acts have been sparse. She called on the committee to take action to enforce these laws.

“This cannot depend on one person,” Echo-Hawk said. “This cannot depend on one organization. It must be a systematic approach that upholds accountability.”