[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REVIEWING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S APPROACH TO THE MISSING AND
MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN (MMIW) CRISIS
________________________________________________________________
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE UNITED STATES
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Serial No. 116-22
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
or
Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-680 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
RAUL M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Chair
DEBRA A. HAALAND, NM, Vice Chair
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN,
CNMI, Vice Chair, Insular Affairs
ROB BISHOP, UT, Ranking Republican Member
Grace F. Napolitano, CA Don Young, AK
Jim Costa, CA Louie Gohmert, TX
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI Doug Lamborn, CO
Jared Huffman, CA Robert J. Wittman, VA
Alan S. Lowenthal, CA Tom McClintock, CA
Ruben Gallego, AZ Paul A. Gosar, AZ
TJ Cox, CA Paul Cook, CA
Joe Neguse, CO Bruce Westerman, AR
Mike Levin, CA Garret Graves, LA
Debra A. Haaland, NM Jody B. Hice, GA
Jefferson Van Drew, NJ Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Joe Cunningham, SC Daniel Webster, FL
Nydia M. Velazquez, NY Liz Cheney, WY
Diana DeGette, CO Mike Johnson, LA
Wm. Lacy Clay, MO Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, PR
Debbie Dingell, MI John R. Curtis, UT
Anthony G. Brown, MD Kevin Hern, OK
A. Donald McEachin, VA Russ Fulcher, ID
Darren Soto, FL
Ed Case, HI
Steven Horsford, NV
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU
Matt Cartwright, PA
Paul Tonko, NY
Vacancy
David Watkins, Chief of Staff
Sarah Lim, Chief Counsel
Parish Braden, Republican Staff Director
http://naturalresources.house.gov
SUBCOMMITTEE FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE UNITED STATES
RUBEN GALLEGO, AZ, Chair
PAUL COOK, CA, Ranking Republican Member
Darren Soto, FL Don Young, AK
Michael F. Q. San Nicolas, GU Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS
Debra A. Haaland, NM John R. Curtis, UT
Ed Case, HI Kevin Hern, OK
Matt Cartwright, PA
Vacancy
Vacancy
Raul M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio
Rob Bishop, UT,
ex officio Vacancy
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Wednesday, September 11, 2019.................... 1
Statement of Members:
Cook, Hon. Paul, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California.............................................. 3
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Gallego, Hon. Ruben, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Statement of Witnesses:
Addington, Charles, Deputy Bureau Director, Office of Justice
Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the
Interior, Washington, DC................................... 14
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Questions submitted for the record....................... 17
Anderson, Hon. John, U.S. Attorney for the District of New
Mexico, U.S. Department of Justice, Santa Fe, New Mexico... 18
Prepared statement of.................................... 20
Questions submitted for the record....................... 23
Hovland, Hon. Jeannie, Commissioner, Administration for
Native Americans (ANA), U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Washington, DC................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Questions submitted for the record....................... 10
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON REVIEWING THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S APPROACH TO
THE MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN (MMIW) CRISIS
----------
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in
room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Ruben Gallego
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Gallego, San Nicolas, Haaland,
Case, Grijalva, and Cook.
Mr. Gallego. The Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the
United States will now come to order. The Subcommittee is
meeting today to hear testimony on the Trump administration's
approach to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW)
crisis.
Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral opening statements at
hearings are limited to the Chair and Ranking Minority Member.
This will allow us to hear from our witnesses sooner and help
Members keep to their schedules. I ask unanimous consent that
all other Members' opening statements be made part of the
hearing record if they are submitted to the Clerk by 5 p.m.
today or the close of the hearing, whichever comes first.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. RUBEN GALLEGO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Gallego. Good morning to you all. Today, we will be
hearing directly from the Trump administration about the steps
it is taking to confront the crisis of Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women (MMIW). Earlier this year, the Subcommittee
held a hearing where we heard from Native women who have
witnessed this crisis firsthand and who are working on the
ground to address it.
I want to thank the Ranking Member for agreeing to look
further into this issue in a bipartisan manner. I think I speak
for both of us when I say how important it is to keep this
issue in the spotlight.
Before we begin today's hearing, I want to remind everyone
why we are here. During our March MMIW hearing, we heard their
names: Ashley Loring HeavyRunner, Mackenzie Howard, Ashlynne
Mike, and Savanna Greywind. They are Native women and girls who
went missing or were killed and whose cases received shamefully
negligent responses from Federal and state agencies.
Unfortunately, these women were not alone and their cases
are not unique. One study found that 1.5 million American
Indian and Alaska Native women experience violence in their
lifetime. On reservations, American Indian and Alaska Native
women experience murder rates 10 times the national average.
And, as we learned at our hearing earlier this year, these
numbers are likely under-reported.
We also know that state, local, and Federal coordination
and response to cases of violence against Indigenous
communities is severely inadequate. In fact, Federal
enforcement has been so notoriously bad that some predators
specifically target Native communities to avoid punishment.
This pattern is sickening.
These high rates of violence are not just a crisis
affecting Indian Country. It is a national disgrace that
demands national action and has not appeared to be a high
priority for this Administration. We, in Congress, are
committed to making change through VAWA, Savanna's Act, and
other legislation. But we need to know we have a partner in the
Administration in working to curb the violence.
Listening sessions are not enough. We need to know what is
being done to streamline protocols, eliminate lag time, improve
databases, and combat apathy in our justice system when
Indigenous people go missing. These are our brothers and
sisters whom we have a responsibility to protect.
I want to remind our witnesses here that the policies we
discuss today have a direct impact on the lives of folks on the
ground, for better or worse. I expect to hear about the
tangible solutions this Administration is pursuing to end the
cycle of violence for Indigenous women in this country.
Anything less is unacceptable.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gallego follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Ruben Gallego, Chair, Subcommittee for
Indigenous Peoples of the United States
Good morning to you all.
Today, we will be hearing directly from the Trump administration
about steps it is taking to confront the crisis of Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women. Earlier this year, this Subcommittee held a hearing
where we heard from Native women who have witnessed this crisis
firsthand, and who are working on the ground to address it.
I want to thank the Ranking Member for agreeing to look further
into this issue in a bipartisan manner. I think I speak for us both
when I say how important it is to keep this issue in the spotlight.
Before we begin today's hearing, I want to remind everyone why we
are here. During our March MMIW hearing, we heard their names: Ashley
Loring HeavyRunner, Mackenzie Howard, Ashlynne Mike, and Savanna
Greywind. They are Native women and girls who went missing or were
killed, and whose cases received shamefully negligent responses from
Federal and state agencies.
Unfortunately, these women were not alone, and their cases are not
unique. One study found that 1.5 million American Indian and Alaska
Native women experience violence in their lifetime. On reservations,
American Indian and Alaska Native women experience murder rates 10
times the national average. And, as we learned at our hearing earlier
this year, these numbers are likely under-reported.
We also know that state, local, and Federal coordination and
response to cases of violence against Indigenous communities is
severely inadequate. In fact, Federal enforcement has been so
notoriously bad that some predators specifically target Native
communities to avoid punishment. This pattern is sickening.
These high rates of violence are not just a crisis affecting Indian
Country. It is a national disgrace that demands national action--action
that has not appeared to be a high priority for this Administration. We
in Congress are committed to making change--through VAWA, Savanna's Act
and other legislation--but we need to know we have a partner in the
Administration in working to curb the violence.
Listening sessions are not enough. We need to know what is being
done to streamline protocols, eliminate lag time, improve databases,
and combat apathy in our justice system when Indigenous people go
missing. These are our brothers and sisters, whom we have a
responsibility to protect.
I want to remind our witnesses here that the policies we discuss
today have a direct impact on the lives of folks on the ground--for
better or worse. I expect to hear about the tangible solutions this
Administration is pursuing to end this cycle of violence for Indigenous
women in this country. Anything less is unacceptable.
______
Mr. Gallego. I would now like to recognize Ranking Member
Cook for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PAUL COOK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today's hearing is the
second part of the discussion this Subcommittee began in March
of this year. At that hearing, the Subcommittee received
testimony detailing the painful situation that has plagued
Native communities for far too long.
Crime and violence, tragically, are not a new phenomenon in
Indian Country. Four out of five Native women are affected by
violence, with the U.S. Department of Justice finding that
American Indian women face murder rates that are more than 10
times the national average. That is scary. American Indians are
victims of violent crimes at a higher rate than the general
population, which has led to the Department of Justice
emphasizing the importance of law enforcement in Indian
Country.
In April, the House of Representatives passed the Violence
Against Women Act, which included many key provisions to
protect Native American women, such as improving tribal access
to Federal crime information databases, and reaffirming tribal
criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian perpetrators of violence
against women. I am looking forward to these provisions
becoming law.
It is so important that we all work together to address
these horrific crimes and find a way to end this unprecedented
violence against Native women.
I am pleased we have some representatives from the
Administration here today. I am looking forward to hearing what
they are doing to combat the crisis of Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cook follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Hon. Paul Cook, Ranking Member, Subcommittee
for Indigenous Peoples of the United States
Thank you, Chairman Gallego.
Today's hearing is the second part of the discussion this
Subcommittee began in March of this year. At that hearing, the
Subcommittee received testimony detailing a painful situation that has
plagued Native communities for too long.
Crime and violence, tragically, are not a new phenomenon in Indian
Country. Four out of five Native women are affected by violence, with
the U.S. Department of Justice finding that American Indian women face
murder rates that are more than 10 times the national average. American
Indians are victims of violent crimes at a higher rate than the general
population, which has led to the Department of Justice emphasizing the
importance of law enforcement in Indian Country.
In April, the House of Representatives passed the Violence Against
Women Act which included many key provisions to protect Native American
women such as improving tribal access to Federal crime information
databases and reaffirming tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian
perpetrators of violence against women. I'm looking forward to these
provisions becoming law.
It is important that we all work together to address these horrific
crimes and find a way to end this unprecedented violence against Native
women.
I am pleased that we have some representatives from the
Administration here today and I am looking forward to hearing what they
are doing to combat the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous
women.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
______
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Ranking Member Cook.
Before we proceed to witness testimony, during our first
hearing, our tribal advocates had a replica of the skirt that
you see near our dais. It was made by a Native woman Agnes
Woodward, originally from Canada, and married to Mandan,
Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation. She makes these locally to bring
awareness for the murdered and missing Indigenous women and
girls. Her aunt is among the missing and murdered Indigenous
women, and Native women wear the skirts to remember their
sisters. Please, if you would like to just observe that we have
that.
I would also like to give an opportunity to the Chairman of
the Committee of Natural Resources, Congressman Grijalva, for
any opening statement.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But I think your
statement and the statement of the Ranking Member, and the
bipartisan approach to accountability with regard to this
issue, is enough said. So, thank you very much. I appreciate
it.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Now, I would like to transition to our panel of expert
witnesses for today. Let me remind the witnesses that under our
Committee Rules, oral statements are limited to 5 minutes. But
you may submit a longer statement for the record, if you
choose.
When you begin, the lights on the witness table will turn
green. After 4 minutes, the yellow light will come on. Your
time will have expired when the red light comes on, and I will
ask you to please wrap up your statement. I will also allow the
entire panel to testify before we question the witnesses.
The Chair now recognizes the Honorable Jeannie Hovland, the
Commissioner for the Administration for Native Americans at the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JEANNIE HOVLAND, COMMISSIONER,
ADMINISTRATION FOR NATIVE AMERICANS (ANA), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. Hovland. Thank you. Chairman Gallego, Ranking Member
Cook, and esteemed members of the House Subcommittee for
Indigenous People of the United States, it is my honor to be
before you today on behalf of the Department of Health and
Human Services concerning the crisis of Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women and Girls.
My name is Jeannie Hovland, and I serve as Commissioner for
the Administration of Native Americans. I am also a proud
member of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe located in South
Dakota.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, homicide is the third leading cause of death among
American Indian and Alaska Native women between 10 and 24 years
of age, and the fifth leading cause of death for American
Indian and Alaska Native women between 25 and 34 years of age.
And more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native
women, or about 84 percent, have experienced violence in their
lifetime, as reported by the National Institute of Justice.
We also know from research that children who witness
domestic violence suffer long-term consequences, including
changes to their mental and physical development, possibly
resulting in worse health outcomes, leading to learning
disorders and a continuation of a cycle of violence over
generations. These statistics are staggering and expose the
deep impact violence has in the lives of Native women,
families, and their communities.
In July, President Bordeaux of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe,
located in South Dakota, issued a statement to his community
that reads in part:
``We have had a number of tragic deaths in the past 10
days. They were almost exclusively children. I know
that we all grieve with the families and extend our
condolences and prayers for comfort for the families
impacted by these tragedies. No parent should have to
bury their children.
It has become obvious that it is a dangerous time for
our people. It is especially true for our young people
and young adults, who face many safety threats that
were unheard of even 15 or 20 years ago. We now find
ourselves in a situation where we need to be more
vigilant about protecting the up and coming
generation.''
Not surprisingly, what we heard from the Urban Indian
Organizations is the resources and collaborations needed to
address these issues include prevention programs, housing,
data, and technical assistance and capacity-building to form
strong partnerships locally to address the multiple service
needs of their most vulnerable clients.
We have also heard from tribal leaders, service providers,
and others about the importance of engaging with tribal
community members to lead efforts in developing and
implementing solutions.
I am happy to share that HHS is leading efforts on primary
prevention, intervention, recovery, and healing. Our efforts
include a whole-family approach that connects families to
services that support the physical, mental, and spiritual
health and well-being of individuals and families.
Within ACF, programs such as the Tribal Maternal, Infant,
and Early Childhood Home Visiting; Head Start; Runaway and
Homeless Youth; Family Violence Prevention and Services; and
Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood are incorporating
new practices to respond to trauma and domestic violence,
raising awareness of the issue, and working to heal victims and
their families. HHS has also created and funded resources that
Native communities can access to serve populations vulnerable
to human trafficking and MMIW.
I have sought ways to be a visible advocate on behalf of
Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific
Indigenous communities through re-establishing and chairing the
Intradepartmental Council on Native American Affairs to enhance
collaboration across HHS, participating in work groups such as
the White House Tribal Affairs Week Group, a Federal
Interagency Working Group on Women and Trauma, and an
Interagency Ad Hoc Working Group, and partnering with the
Department of the Interior and Department of Justice.
I recently joined Assistant Secretary Tara Sweeney and
other Federal and tribal representatives at a listening session
focused on cold cases, violent crimes, human trafficking, and
MMIW.
In closing, Tribal Nations and Native communities in urban
areas are ready to act to address MMIW, and HHS is ready to
partner with them. We are thankful for the attention you are
bringing to missing and murdered Indigenous peoples and the
support of the Subcommittee in helping address this crisis.
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hovland follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jeannie Hovland, Commissioner, Administration for
Native Americans, Administration for Children and Families, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services
introduction
Chairman Gallego, Ranking Member Cook, and esteemed members of the
House Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States, it is
my honor to testify before you on behalf of the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) concerning the crisis of missing and murdered
Indigenous women (MMIW) and girls. My name is Jeannie Hovland and I
serve as the Commissioner of the Administration for Native Americans
(ANA) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). I am a
proud member of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe located in South
Dakota. Before my appointment, I served as Senior Advisor to the
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the
Interior (DOI) and, prior to joining the Administration, I worked for
nearly 13 years on Native American issues for Senator John Thune of
South Dakota.
Our approach to addressing MMIW issues has been to engage with our
stakeholders, partner with our sister agencies, and promote available
resources while creating new opportunities to meet identified gaps.
Since my confirmation, I have worked to improve collaboration within
HHS and across the Federal interagency with respect to issues
concerning Native communities. In particular, I re-established and
chair the Intradepartmental Council on Native American Affairs (ICNAA).
This council, initially established under the Native Americans Programs
Act, was designed to enhance collaboration across the HHS operating
divisions when addressing policy and budget issues that affect Native
Americans. The ICNAA has met three times and two of our focus areas
include human trafficking and MMIW. Opioids and substance use disorders
have had a grave impact on our Nation, including Native communities,
and represents another area of focus for the ICNAA.
background
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
homicide is the third leading cause of death among American Indian and
Alaska Native (AI/AN) women between 10 and 24 years of age, and the
fifth leading cause of death for AI/AN women between 25 and 34 years of
age.\1\ Data from U.S. crime reports indicate that nearly half of
female homicide victims in the United States are killed by a current or
former male intimate partner.\2\ According to the National Institute of
Justice (NIJ), more than four in five AI/AN women, or about 84 percent,
have experienced violence in their lifetime.\3\ These statistics are
staggering and expose the deep impact violence has in the lives of
Native women, families, and communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Leading Causes of Death (LCOD) by Age Group, American Indian/
Alaska Native Females-United States, 2013 and 2014. Numbers for 2015
vary slightly for these age bands but remain one of the leading causes
of death for these ages. Accessed at: https://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/
index.htm.
\2\ Cooper, A., & Smith, E.L. (2011). Homicide trends in the United
States, 1980-2008. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. NCJ
236018. Petrosky, E., et al. (2017). Racial and Ethnic Differences in
Homicides of Adult Women and the Role of Intimate Partner Violence--
United States, 2003-2014. MMWR. Morbidity and mortality weekly report,
66(28), 741-746. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm6628a1.
\3\ National Institute of Justice. Five Things About Violence
Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women and Men. https://
nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-violence-against-
american-indian-and-alaska-native-women-and-men.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I recently participated in the Department of Justice (DOJ), Office
of Violence Against Women tribal consultation where a tribal leader
stated that often the first responders to a domestic violence scene are
the children in the home. We know from research that children who
witness domestic violence suffer long-term consequences including
changes to their mental and physical development, possibly resulting in
worse health outcomes, learning disorders, and continuation of a cycle
of violence over generations.\4\ Further, the long-term effects of
adverse childhood events is that they create emotional scars that are
reopened when people are exposed to traumas in adulthood leading to
adult post-traumatic stress disorder.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Child-Witnessed Domestic Violence and its Adverse Effects on
Brain Development: A Call for Societal Self-Examination and Awareness,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4193214/; Domestic
Violence and the Child Welfare System, https://www.childwelfare.gov/
pubPDFs/domestic-violence.pdf.
Recently, I attended HHS Regional Consultations across the Nation
asking what HHS can do to address human trafficking and MMIW, and have
continually heard that tribes do not want just more studies on this
issue but also want action. In July, President Bordeaux of the Rosebud
Sioux Tribe located in South Dakota issued a statement to his community
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
that reads in part:
``We have had a number of tragic deaths in the past 10 days.
They were almost exclusively children. I know that we all
grieve with the families and extend our condolences and prayers
for comfort for the families impacted by these tragedies. No
parent should have to bury their children.
It has become obvious that it is a dangerous time for our
people. It is especially true of our young people and our young
adults, who face many safety threats that were unheard of even
15 or 20 years ago. We now find ourselves in a situation where
we need to be more vigilant about protecting the up and coming
generation. There are simply too many threats to their safety.
Indian Country's struggles with alcohol, meth and opioids are
well documented.''
Unfortunately what is happening in Rosebud is happening in many
other tribal communities as well. This is why a multi-agency approach
is vital to making any kind of impact on these issues all of which are
tied together.
On July 18, 2019, to ensure that Native Americans living in urban
settings are included in strategies to address trafficking and MMIW, I
co-hosted a virtual conference with urban Indian organizations and the
National Council of Urban Indian Health to discuss MMIW. Twelve urban
Indian organizations participated, as well as the DOJ, the Department
of Housing and Urban Development, and my HHS colleagues from the Indian
Health Service (IHS). Not surprisingly, what we heard from the urban
Indian organizations is that the resources and collaborations needed to
address these issues include prevention programs, housing, data, and
technical assistance and capacity building to form strong partnerships
locally to address the multiple service needs of their most vulnerable
clients.
primary prevention
I am happy to share that HHS is leading efforts on primary
prevention, intervention, recovery, and healing. Our efforts include a
whole family approach that connects families to services that support
the physical, mental, and spiritual health and well-being of
individuals and families. Within ACF, programs such as the Tribal
Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV), Head
Start, Runaway and Homeless Youth, Family Violence Prevention and
Services, and Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood are
incorporating new practices to respond to trauma and domestic violence,
raising awareness of the issue, and working to heal victims and their
families.
For example, the Tribal MIECHV program supports the development of
happy, healthy, and successful AI/AN children and families through a
coordinated home visiting strategy that addresses critical maternal and
child health, development, early learning, family support, and child
abuse and neglect prevention needs. Tribal MIECHV conducted 72,326 home
visits between 2012 and 2017 and in 2017, the program served 3,453
parents and children. In Maricopa County, Arizona, Native Health, one
of our Tribal MIECHV grantees, is working to enable urban AI/AN
enrolled in the program to experience increased safety through
prevention of child abuse and neglect and domestic violence. This
comprehensive services program provides the full range of physical and
mental health medical services to participants including misdemeanor
domestic violence offender treatment services.
The importance of mental health services in these communities that
bear the weight of historic and contemporary trauma cannot be
understated. Programs with a trauma-informed approach can help to
establish competent, compassionate, and culturally appropriate
responses. The Tribal Behavioral Health Agenda was created by the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at
the request of tribal leaders and examines the impact of trauma on
current mental health outcomes. In partnership with Futures Without
Violence, the Head Start program has developed trainings for grantees
on trauma informed care, how to recognize and respond to disclosures
about domestic violence, and how to partner with community domestic
violence programs to address the issue.
I have heard from tribal leaders, service providers, and others
about the importance of engaging with tribal community members to lead
efforts in developing and implementing solutions. As President Bordeaux
stated, it is a dangerous time for our youth. Toward this end, I am
working to connect the tribal youth directly with Federal leaders--to
hear about their ideas and concerns and to empower them to become
change agents in their communities. I strongly believe that youth need
to be at the table when addressing these important issues. In July, I
hosted the first-ever ICNAA Native Youth Town Hall in Albuquerque, New
Mexico. At this town hall, leadership from SAMHSA, CDC, IHS, the ACF
Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP), and I heard from over 100
Native youth from across the United States, including Guam, Saipan, and
American Samoa. We provided these youth a number of resources,
including our Native Youth Toolkit on Human Trafficking. Shortly after
the town hall, I received an e-mail from youth leaders asking if they
could meet regularly with HHS leadership and work with us to address
mental health and wellness issues including physical activity,
nutrition, substance abuse, human trafficking, and MMIW. We held our
first follow-up call a few weeks ago.
promoting and developing resources
HHS has created and funded resources that Native communities can
access to serve populations vulnerable to human trafficking and MMIW.
These populations include foster children; runaway and homeless youth;
victims of domestic violence and children who witness it; homeless
adults; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals;
individuals with mental disabilities; and those struggling with
substance abuse or addiction.
ACF's Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) formula
grant is non-competitive and is mandated to allocate 10 percent of its
appropriation to tribes and tribal organizations in an effort to
increase public awareness and support services for victims of family,
domestic, or dating violence. This funding is typically used to pay for
domestic violence prevention advocates who can assist victims with
creating a safety plan as well as crisis intervention, such as an
emergency shelter. FVPSA also provides discretionary funds for several
resources specific to tribes, such as the StrongHearts Native Helpline,
the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center (NIWRC), and the Alaska
Native Women's Resource Center (AKNWRC).
The StrongHearts Native Helpline is a confidential and anonymous
helpline for Native peoples affected by domestic and dating violence,
as well as responds to calls from victims of human trafficking, as
needed. StrongHearts is currently a collaborative project of The
National Domestic Violence Hotline and NIWRC whose legal counsel, Mary
Kathryn Nagle, testified before you on the MMIW issue this past March.
In operation for just over 2 years, StrongHearts has experienced an
increase in call volume since expanding its service hours,
demonstrating that there is significant demand for culturally specific
services.
The NIWRC serves as the National Indian Resource Center Addressing
Domestic Violence focused on providing national leadership to end
gender-based violence through educational resources, training and
technical assistance, and policy to enhance the capacity of tribes and
tribal organizations. They have also developed materials to bring
awareness and resources to Native communities on the issue of MMIW
including a toolkit that can be accessed online.
The AKNWRC serves Alaska's 229 federally recognized tribes,
regional corporations, and tribal consortia as a statewide resource
focused on strengthening local tribal responses to domestic and gender-
based violence. They are also meeting on MMIW in their communities to
discuss and develop a plan for further outreach about this crisis in
the Alaska Native communities.
Recently on the matter of MMIW, the Family Violence Prevention and
Services program collaborated with NIWRC, StrongHearts, and AKNWRC to
raise the visibility of this issue and growing epidemic at its 2019
Tribal Grantee Meeting, held August 13-15, 2019 in Seattle, Washington.
Speakers from the NIJ, in partnership with the University of North
Texas Health Science Center, presented on NamUs, the National Missing
and Unidentified Persons System. NamUs is a centralized database and
resource center that assists law enforcement, medical professionals,
and public users in resolving cases of missing, unidentified, and
unclaimed persons. Also, a member of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians
Community Domestic Violence Advocacy Program presented on this issue
from the perspective of a surviving family member. Risk factors, data,
challenges, and policy changes related to MMIW, as well as what can be
done as community members and individuals, were shared with meeting
attendees.
The National Runaway Safeline (NRS) is another HHS resource that
has pledged increasing outreach to AI/AN communities. The NRS supports
and serves youth in crisis, runaway youth, and youth experiencing
homelessness and their families. The NRS provides services such as free
bus tickets home, and a way to leave messages for family and loved
ones, if the youth feel that they are not safe contacting them
directly. They also offer prevention resources to help minimize running
away incidents among vulnerable youth, including resources tailored for
Native American youth.
frontline providers
Health care providers are often the first line of defense in
identifying cases of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, teen
dating violence, and human trafficking. Ensuring these providers are
adequately trained to identify and address these cases is an important
step in intervention. Through training efforts such as the Stop,
Observe, Ask, and Respond (SOAR) to Health and Wellness Program
administered by OTIP, providers learn how to identify cases of human
trafficking. They study clinical contexts using trauma informed and
culturally appropriate approaches. Recognizing the importance of
culture, ANA has partnered with OTIP to develop a SOAR curriculum for
Native communities. This training examines historic factors that
contribute to the trafficking of Native populations, identifies
indicators, and describes what human trafficking looks like in Native
communities. Moreover, it provides existing resources for Native
populations and service providers working on this issue and describes
methods for honoring cultural practices while providing supportive
services to individuals who have experienced human trafficking. We also
created an online Native Youth Toolkit on Human Trafficking that is
designed to raise awareness and prevent this issue through education
and includes tips on how to stay safe.
In July, the CDC and IHS partnered on a National Conference on
American Indian/Alaska Native Injury and Violence Prevention. The
conference brought together tribal and Federal stakeholders to discuss
the links between violence and injury and how to intervene in instances
of intimate partner violence (IPV). The CDC offers a technical package
of programs, policies, and practices to stop violence before it
starts.\5\ IHS regularly provides screening on IPV during appointments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/ipv-
technicalpackages.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other important programs that aim to be a means of primary
prevention include ACF's Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood
grant programs. These are part of HHS's community-based efforts to
promote strong, healthy family formation and maintenance, responsible
fatherhood and parenting. Grants such as these help strengthen healthy
forms of relationship and parenting and can serve as a preventative
measure against intimate partner violence.
ana approach
ANA funding is unique in the flexibility it provides to tailor
projects to the needs of the community it is serving. Because of this,
ANA funding can be used to address MMIW in a myriad of ways. This could
include funding of training programs or helping tribes create codes and
collect data for their response to disappearances or violence when they
occur. ANA funding also prioritizes the preservation of Native cultures
and languages which have been shown to stand as a strong protective and
preventative factor. The Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center
recently completed a project Oshki Wayeshkad (New Beginnings) that
illustrates how communities use ANA funds. This project provided
emotional, cultural, and life skills coaching to women age 16 to 21,
and during the course of the project, staff helped a woman living with
an abusing partner move, find employment, and attend dialysis and
medical appointments.
In addition to promoting our funding opportunities, I seek ways to
be ``a visible advocate'' on behalf of Native Americans, Alaska
Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Indigenous communities. In order
to strengthen my advocacy, I have been active in workgroups that are
breaking down silos to address issues of great concern to tribes and
Native communities. These include a White House Tribal Affairs Work
Group, which has highlighted MMIW as well as substance abuse and
economic development as priorities, a Federal Interagency Working Group
on Women and Trauma, and an Interagency Ad Hoc Working Group on AI/AN
trafficking. I have also formed partnerships with the Department of the
Interior and Department of Justice focused on improving public safety.
I recently joined the DOI Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Tara
Sweeney, and other Federal and tribal representatives at a listening
session focused on cold cases, violent crimes, human trafficking, and
MMIW.
We will be following up on our consultations and listening sessions
with additional in-person roundtables with legislators and Federal
partners focused on sharing data and formulating recommendations for
victim protections. ANA has been developing a relationship with tribal
epidemiology centers in cities across the country to have dialogue on
MMIW data collection, the lack of which is problematic in identifying
the scope of the problem.
Furthermore, ANA recently partnered with OTIP to establish the
first-ever class of the Human Trafficking Leadership Academy where
Native survivors of human trafficking and frontline professionals will
have the opportunity to participate in monthly leadership training over
a 6-month period while examining cultural protective factors aimed at
prevention of human trafficking of Native youth. This class is
scheduled to begin in October and we look forward to their
recommendations in the spring.
conclusion
Tribal nations and Native communities in urban areas are ready to
act to address MMIW and HHS is ready to partner with them. We are
thankful for the attention you are bringing to MMIW and the support of
this Subcommittee in helping address this crisis.
I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Commissioner Hovland,
Administration for Native Americans, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services
Question Submitted by Rep. Gallego
Question 1. As apparent in your testimony, ANA offers a couple of
readily-accessible resources to Native communities on the topic of
MMIW, such as the online Native Youth Toolkit on Human Trafficking.
1a. How does ANA conduct outreach to relevant communities and
organizations so that they know about these resources?
Answer. ANA developed the toolkit in partnership with our
Administration for Children & Families (ACF) colleagues, including the
Office of Trafficking in Persons (OTIP). This toolkit was informed by
focus groups of tribal youth, Federal grantees, and Native Americans
who have experienced sex and labor trafficking.
ACF is working to distribute this toolkit and other resources in
multiple ways. ANA and OTIP have printed and distributed hundreds of
copies to Native youth, community members, and tribal leaders during
workshops, consultations, listening sessions, and other events
throughout the United States and Pacific Islands, such as our Native
Youth Town Hall in Albuquerque, NM this past July. ACF has shared this
toolkit online via our own social media platforms and those of our
partners (where the toolkit has received thousands of ``likes'',
shares, and clicks), blast e-mails, and on our website, where it has
received more than 3,000 views.
As another example, this past summer ANA and OTIP worked with the
Center for Native American Youth (CNAY), through the National Human
Trafficking Training & Technical Assistance Center, to train Native
youth leaders on human trafficking. As a follow up, CNAY is
collaborating with these leaders to support their efforts to raise
awareness in their communities using the Native Youth Toolkit on
trafficking and soliciting ideas and input on how culture may be a
protective factor in preventing trafficking among Native youth. The
youth will work with CNAY remotely to create individual multi-media
products that share their findings, which will inform the next cohort
of our Human Trafficking Leadership Academy (HTLA).
1b. Is ANA in the process of creating additional publicly-available
resources for Native victims or organizations?
Answer. ANA is working with OTIP, the National Human Trafficking
Training and Technical Assistance Center, and external partners to
develop SOAR for Native Communities (Stop, Observe, Ask, Respond),
under the SOAR to Health and Wellness Program.
This training was borne out of OTIP's partnership with ANA. ANA
felt there was a need for a training that spoke to not only American
Indians and Alaska Natives, but also Native Hawaiians and Pacific
Islanders on human trafficking from a public health framework and
incorporated cultural considerations and trauma-informed care. ANA and
OTIP worked with subject matter experts with both professional and
lived experience from the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center
(NIWRC), Indian Health Service, and Innovations Human Trafficking
Collaborative to develop the training content. ANA and OTIP also had
the training content externally reviewed by staff with the Tribal Law
and Policy Institute, the American Indian Center of Chicago, National
Council on Urban Indian Health, and members of the ACF Tribal Advisory
Committee over the last year to ensure we were inclusive for urban
Native communities.
Our objectives for this training include:
Describe historic factors that contribute to the
trafficking (both labor and sex trafficking) of Indigenous
populations
Describe trafficking in Native communities
Identify indicators of trafficking in Native communities
Describe trafficking resources relevant to Native
populations
Describe methods for honoring cultural practices while
providing support to individuals who have experienced
trafficking
Explain ways to strengthen cross-jurisdictional
collaborations to build comprehensive responses to
trafficking in Native communities
Once finalized, ACF plans to have it freely available through our
SOAR Online Learning Management System as well as available for in-
person delivery upon request through our technical assistance provider.
ACF will employ a variety of methods to promote this training as a
resource.
Question Submitted by Rep. Grijalva
Question 1. You highlight the Administration for Children and
Families' (ACF) Family Violence Prevention and Services Act and the
help that it has been in establishing vital victim services and
awareness programs for tribal communities. Because 10 percent of the
Act's appropriations go directly to tribes and to tribal organizations,
such programs are reliant on the Act's annual funding.
1a. Exactly how much money was available to tribes and tribal
organizations this fiscal year?
Answer. The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) is
statutorily mandated to support Native American Tribes (including
Alaska Native Villages) and tribal organizations through an allocation
of not less than 10 percent of the total appropriation (less amounts
reserved under Section 312). The statutory purpose of these grants is
to: (1) assist tribes in efforts to increase public awareness about,
and primary and secondary prevention of family violence, domestic
violence, and dating violence; and (2) assist tribes in efforts to
provide immediate shelter and supportive services for victims of family
violence, domestic violence, or dating violence, and their dependents.
The allocation for tribes in Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 is $15,170,059.
The FY 2019 Consolidated Appropriations Act included $5,000,000 in
appropriations to the FVPSA Program, for the purposes of supporting
Native American Tribes and tribal organizations. With this increase,
the total amount allocated to tribes in FY 2019 is approximately
$20,170,059.
1b. What will the funding look like next year?
Answer. The Family Violence Prevention and Services/Domestic
Violence Shelter and Supportive Services/Grants to Native American
Tribes (including Alaska Native Villages) and tribal organizations
applications are due February 28, 2020. The 2020 President's Budget
provided level funding for the program, and ACF looks forward to
working with Congress throughout the appropriations process.
1c. In your experience, has there been an expressed need for
greater funding?
Answer. For the last 2 fiscal years, Congress has provided an
additional $5,000,000 in appropriations specifically for grants to
tribes and tribal organizations. In FY 2018 and 2019, this increase
enabled the FVPSA Program to increase tribal grant awards (83 of 142)
from approximately $17,000 to approximately $46,000. The 2020
President's Budget provided level funding for the program, and ACF
looks forward to working with Congress throughout the appropriations
process.
Questions Submitted by Rep. Haaland
Question 1. You mentioned that HHS is leading the Federal efforts
on primary prevention, intervention, recovery, and healing as they
pertain to the MMIW crisis.
1a. Are other Federal agencies helping HHS to fulfill this mission?
Answer. Yes. Within HHS, the primary vehicle for coordinating
Native American issues across the department is the HHS
Intradepartmental Council on Native American Affairs (ICNAA), which has
identified Human Trafficking/Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and
Girls as one of its top priorities. Currently, the ICNAA is identifying
a series of immediate, medium, and long-term outcomes to work toward
addressing. This work is part of the continuing collaboration with
offices at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of
the Interior to ensure that health and human services, as well as
victim services, are thought about holistically with regards to MMIW.
1b. If they aren't currently, how could other agencies collaborate
with HHS to implement programming related to MMIW?
Answer. HHS, led by ANA, is engaging in listening sessions,
consultations, and other events across the Federal Government to help
increase awareness, share resources, and learn from communities in
order to develop responses to the issues around data and programming.
HHS continues to reach out to other Federal agencies to include them in
these critical conversations.
Question 2. You highlight the recent establishment of the Human
Trafficking Leadership Academy, where Native survivors of human
trafficking and frontline professionals are given the opportunity to
participate in monthly leadership training.
2a. Can you detail how this leadership academy was created (i.e.
who was involved/consulted, was it a Native-driven community effort,
etc.)?
Answer. This particular leadership academy included input and
involvement from Native American perspectives. The project question for
the HTLA Cohort 5, which examines culture as a protective factor for
Native youth, was developed through input over time with the ACF Tribal
Advisory Committee, a group of 26 tribal leaders (13 primary and 13
alternates) from across the country and through other tribal listening
sessions held at various conferences and with discussions with Native
American associations like the National Indian Health Board, the
California Rural Indian Health Board and at ACF tribal consultation. It
was further refined in partnership with the Center for Native American
Youth, a national organization focused on Native Youth empowerment as
well as Native American human trafficking survivors. This cohort
received more than 100 applications, the majority of them from
individuals who identify as Native American, which speaks to the
interest in these opportunities.
The HTLA is committed to developing and expanding survivor-informed
services while also providing leadership development opportunities to
survivor leaders and related professionals. Fellows work
collaboratively to provide substantive recommendations that will inform
research, policies, and programs that improve awareness, understanding,
and assistance to survivors of human trafficking or those at risk of
human trafficking.
The leadership training provided at monthly seminars over the
course of 4 to 6 months is applicable to the fellows' current work and
helps them grow in their chosen career. As they collaborate through a
combination of in-person and virtual work, they also establish a
trusted network among all the fellows that could last a lifetime. The
final seminar includes a graduation ceremony and a presentation to
Federal stakeholders on findings and recommendations related to the
project question.
2b. Do you think replicating such a process is necessary in
creating lasting and effective victim services programs in Indian
Country?
Answer. ACF will have a better sense of the effectiveness of this
process once we have completed the HTLA Cohort 5 in the spring of 2020.
However, we do know that survivor-informed solutions are likely to
resonate with the target audience and that programs and services in
Indian Country must be tailored to the specific context and resources
available in those specific communities.
Question 3. Last month, staff members from the NIWRC, the Alaska
Native Women's Resource Center (AKNWRC), and the StrongHearts Native
Helpline gathered in Seattle at a Tribal Grantee Meeting to discuss the
MMIW crisis.
3a. Does your agency currently offer similar annual conferences or
strategic planning meetings for tribal programs funded under the Family
Violence Prevention and Services Act?
Answer. The biennial FVPSA Tribal Grantee meeting was held August
12 through 16, 2019 in Seattle. The 2\1/2\ day meeting provided
training, technical assistance, and mentoring for FVPSA-funded tribes
and tribal organizations. The in-person meeting allowed for in-depth
technical assistance focused on administrative and programmatic grant
implementation. Attendees shared and heard from each other on promising
practices and barriers to providing services that are unique to their
communities, experiences, and programs. Listening sessions, facilitated
dialogue, and presentations were utilized as mechanisms for training.
NIWRC, AKNWRC, and StrongHearts Native Helpline representatives were in
attendance at this meeting and collaborated with the FVPSA Program to
raise the visibility of MMIW issues and the growing crisis. Speakers
from the DOJ National Institute of Justice, in partnership with the
University of North Texas Health Science Center, presented on NamUs,
the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. NamUs is a
centralized database and resource center that assists law enforcement,
medical professionals, and public users in resolving cases of missing,
unidentified, and unclaimed persons. Also, a member of the Puyallup
Tribe of Indians Community Domestic Violence Advocacy Program presented
on this issue from the perspective of a surviving family member. Risk
factors, data, challenges, and policy changes related to MMIW, as well
as strategies for community members and individuals, were shared with
meeting attendees.
In 2020, ACF will host a Native American Grantee meeting in
February 2020 in Arlington, VA. ACF intends to host discussion on MMIW
at the event and share resources. The FVPSA Program plans to hold a
smaller peer-to-peer tribal grantee meeting tentatively scheduled for
early March 2020.
3b. Is HHS considering the proposal of an annual summit on the
topic of MMIW amongst its many victim support services programs?
Answer. HHS cannot predict whether funding availability in outlying
years would permit it (or its components) to hold an annual summit.
However, ACF is seeking to integrate the topic into its various
meetings and conferences whenever possible. The FVPSA Program will
continue to include discussions of MMIW as part of its grantee
meetings, but it currently does not have the funding to implement a
separate summit, with 97.5 percent of FVPSA funding required to be
allocated for grant awards and 2.5 percent allocated for program
administration.
______
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Commissioner.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Charles Addington, the Deputy
Bureau Director for the Office of Justice Services at the U.S.
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES ADDINGTON, DEPUTY BUREAU DIRECTOR, OFFICE
OF JUSTICE SERVICES, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Addington. Good morning, Chairman Gallego, Ranking
Member Cook, and members of the Subcommittee. My name is
Charles Addington, and I am the Deputy Bureau Director for the
Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services at the
Department of the Interior. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify on behalf of the Department regarding the Missing and
Murdered Indigenous Women crisis confronting American Indian
and Alaska Native communities.
The Department has made a priority to address this crisis
head-on. My testimony will reflect the current work that the
Department is doing.
With Native Americans facing alarming levels of violence
across the country, more can be done to support meaningful
efforts to address these high crime rates in Indian Country.
The Violence Against Women Act and the Tribal Law and Order Act
have both helped bring attention to the high rate of violence
and the gaps in crime trends in Indian Country.
However, significant gaps in data that exacerbate the
crisis of missing and murdered Native Americans remain. These
data gaps impact how law enforcement officials handle or follow
up on these cases. These challenges are present across multiple
sectors, but are particularly problematic in the context of
criminal justice, in which Federal, state, tribal, and local
governments share responsibilities.
It is important to continue efforts to build accurate data
and provide Congress, the public, and most importantly, the
tribes with the information needed to identify and analyze the
criminal justice needs in Indian Country to better address the
crisis.
Since the FBI Uniformed Crime Report does not collect
missing person data, the BIA Office of Justice Services has
partnered with the DOJ's Missing and Unidentified Persons
system, named NamUs, a program of the National Institute of
Justice to create new data fields in their system to
specifically capture tribal affiliation data. The new data
fields were implemented and went live in February 2019. This
additional data will assist law enforcement agencies across
jurisdictions with tracking and investigating missing persons
throughout Indian Country.
The BIA Office of Justice Services has also begun efforts
to raise awareness and provide additional training to Indian
Country law enforcement personnel. The BIA Indian Police
Academy collaborated with the National Criminal Justice
Training Center to create joint training programs for cold case
investigations, long-term missing investigations, and child
abduction investigations for use throughout Indian Country.
This joint effort has resulted in over 300 Indian Country
law enforcement officers being trained to this date. The BIA
Indian Police Academy has also implemented missing person
courses in our basic and advanced training programs, resulting
in an additional 158 law enforcement personnel trained this
year.
In addition to the focused efforts of the BIA Office of
Justice Services, the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs
office has been directly engaged in three listening sessions
within Indian Country and Alaska since June. Participation has
included senior DOI leadership, the Domestic Policy Council,
the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the Department of
Health and Human Services, the Administration for Native
Americans, and the Department of Justice.
In May, the inaugural roundtable was hosted by the Gila
River community in Arizona. With the leadership of Governor
Stephen Lewis, we were able to convene tribal leadership, the
Administration, and other stakeholders to engage in a
discussion on Reclaiming our Native Communities.
In August, we took the Reclaiming our Native Communities to
Bethel and Nome, Alaska to hear from Alaska Native communities.
These face-to-face discussions between the Administration and
tribal leaders from throughout the United States was intended
to highlight the Department's commitment to promoting public
safety in Indian Country and Alaska Native villages.
The Administration remains committed to partnering with
American Indian and Alaska Native tribal leadership communities
and other appropriate stakeholders to better assure safety and
economic prosperity in Indian Country. It is imperative that we
continue to work in partnership and create safe communities and
arrest the trend of issues plaguing our Native communities.
I look forward to working with members of the Subcommittee
and Congress to address this important issue. I will be happy
to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Addington follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles Addington, Deputy Bureau Director--Office
of Justice Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs, United States Department
of the Interior
Good morning Chairman Gallego, Ranking Member Cook, and members of
the Subcommittee. My name is Charles Addington, and I am the Deputy
Bureau Director--Office of Justice Services (OJS), Bureau of Indian
Affairs (BIA), at the Department of the Interior (Department). Thank
you for the opportunity to present a statement on behalf of the
Department regarding the crisis confronting our American Indians and
Alaska Natives (AIAN) communities, which is Missing and Murdered AIAN
(Missing and Murdered Indigenous People or MMIP). The Department has
made it a priority to address this crisis head-on. My testimony will
reflect the current work of the Department.
As you are aware, American Indians and Alaska Natives are two and a
half times more likely to experience violent crimes and at least two
times more likely to experience rape or sexual assault crimes in
comparison to all other ethnicities, according to the Department of
Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Statistics. With AIAN facing
disproportionately high levels of violence across the country, more can
be done to support meaningful efforts to address these high rates in
Indian Country.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Tribal Law and Order
Act (TLOA) have helped bring attention to the high rate of violence in
Indian Country and the gaps in identifying crime trends in Indian
Country. The Department is coordinating with other Federal partners to
strengthen crime data reporting. However, significant gaps in data that
exacerbate the MMIP crisis remain. These challenges are present across
multiple sectors but are particularly problematic in the context of
criminal justice, in which Federal, state, tribal, and local
governments share responsibilities. It is important to continue efforts
to build accurate data and provide Congress, the public, and, most
importantly, tribes, with the information needed to identify and
analyze the criminal justice needs in Indian Country to better address
this crisis.
These data gaps impact how law enforcement officials handle or
follow up on cases. Under-reporting, racial misclassification,
potential gender or racial bias, and a lack of law enforcement
resources required to follow through and close out cases appropriately,
are just some of the challenges faced when working on MMIP cases.
In 2017, the Urban Indian Health Institute surveyed 71 cities
across the United States to collect data on murdered and missing
indigenous women and girls in urban settings. The Institute's survey
and analysis of the collected data culminated in their 2018 report,
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which highlights some
of the challenges of data collection with respect to AIAN populations
in urban centers.
For Indian Country, BIA OJS collects monthly crime statistics from
Tribal and BIA law enforcement programs and submits the information to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) each quarter. The information
collected is specific to the data required for the FBI Uniform Crime
Report (UCR), which currently does not track missing persons or
domestic violence statistics.
As the UCR does not collect missing persons data, BIA OJS has
partnered with DOJ's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System
(NamUs), a program of the National Institute of Justice, to create new
data fields in their system to specifically capture tribal affiliation
data. The new fields were implemented and went live in late February
2019. This additional data will assist law enforcement agencies across
jurisdictions with tracking and investigating missing persons
throughout the country.
Going forward, better inter-agency coordination and cooperation is
needed to improve the integrity of the data collected. While it is
widely believed that there may be a correlation between opioid and
other narcotics abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence, and MMIP,
without sufficient data, it is difficult to draw solid conclusions.
Federal agencies must develop concrete solutions to improve agency data
collection to ensure these crimes are being tracked and investigated
appropriately so that any trends can be properly identified and
addressed. For example, adding the above listed types of incidents to
the data collected by DOJ, BIA, and tribal and other cooperating law
enforcement agencies is a positive step toward addressing the data
collection problem.
BIA OJS has also begun efforts to raise awareness and provide
training to Indian Country law enforcement personnel. In January 2018,
the BIA Indian Police Academy (IPA) began discussions with the National
Criminal Justice Training Center (NCJTC) on collaborating to create
joint training programs for cold case investigations, long-term missing
investigations, and child abduction investigations for use throughout
Indian Country. The BIA OJS also continues to assess the need for
greater training opportunities in the northern tier states to better
support Indian Country Officers and Agents.
To specifically address the missing persons aspect of this issue,
in 2018 the BIA-IPA launched human trafficking courses in the Indian
Country Police Officer Training Program; the Basic Police Officer
Bridge Training Program; and the Indian Country Criminal Investigator
Training Program (a joint FBI, BIA, and Tribal attended program).
In February 2018, the NCJTC and BIA-IPA identified dates and
locations for three pilot training programs on Advanced Cold Case Long
Term Missing Investigations in Montana and North Dakota. The three
training programs were held at Blackfeet, Montana and New Town, North
Dakota. A total of 117 personnel were trained in these programs. The
BIA-IPA is also scheduled to participate in the assessment of an NCJTC
project to create a web/mobile-capable investigative guide for tribal
first responders on endangered, missing, and abducted persons.
In addition to the focused efforts of BIA OJS, my office has been
directly engaged in three listening sessions within Indian Country and
Alaska since June. Participation has included DOI leadership, the
Domestic Policy Council, the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, the
Department of Health and Human Services, the Administration for Native
Americans, and DOJ.
In May, an inaugural roundtable was hosted by the Gila River Indian
Community in Sacaton, Arizona. With the leadership of Governor Stephen
Lewis, we were able to convene tribal leadership, the Administration
and other stakeholders to engage in a discussion on, ``Reclaiming Our
Native Communities.'' In August, we took our ``Reclaiming Our Native
Communities'' roundtable to Bethel and Nome, Alaska to hear from Alaska
Native Communities. These face-to-face discussions between the Trump
administration and tribal leaders from throughout the United States
highlight the Department's commitment to promoting public safety in
Indian Country and Alaska Native villages.
These engagements were well received by all tribal leaders in
attendance. Many tribal leaders agreed that a holistic, multi-faceted
approach to building safe and secure communities is necessary to
address the particular criminal issues that plague Indian Country and
Alaska Native villages. Broadband and improved communications
development were perceived by many tribal leaders as a necessary
support structure to promote critical response to crime and emergency
situations. Tribal leaders also advocated for infrastructure for
housing, community water and sewer, improved law enforcement
facilities, training, and capacity building for tribal courts and
justice systems to promote self-determined safety protocols within
tribal communities.
The Trump administration remains committed to partnering with
American Indian and Alaska Native tribal leadership, communities and
other appropriate stakeholders to better ensure safety and economic
prosperity in Indian Country. It is imperative that we continue to work
in partnership and create safe communities and arrest the trend of
issues plaguing our Native communities.
I look forward to working with members of this Subcommittee and
Congress to address this important issue. I will be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to Mr. Addington, Deputy Bureau
Director, Office of Justice Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Mr. Addington did not submit responses to the Committee by the
appropriate deadline for inclusion in the printed record.
Question Submitted by Rep. Gallego
Question 1. In your testimony, you mention that gaps in data pose
great obstacles to Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW)
investigations and that the alleviation of such gaps remains of
importance to BIA.
1a. What initiatives has your agency undertaken to alleviate the
gaps in MMIW data?
1b. Please provide any timelines that outline these initiatives to
this Committee.
Question Submitted by Rep. Grijalva
Question 1. Recently, it has been publicized that the Trump
administration hosted a roundtable discussion on the theme of
``Reclaiming Our Native Communities'' with tribal stakeholders. In
BIA's testimony you acknowledge these discussions and notes that the
roundtable occurred in Sacaton, Arizona last May. However, DOI's online
press release states that the discussion occurred in Sacaton, Arizona
on June 11. Representatives from BIA and ANA were both present at the
``Reclaiming Our Native Communities'' discussion, however it remains
unclear how many of these discussions occurred--as evidenced by these
date discrepancies--and what was established at them.
1a. Please provide a read-out, transcript, notes and list of
participants from this roundtable to this Committee.
1b. Will the information or notes collected from this listening
session be made public?
Questions Submitted by Rep. Haaland
Question 1. BIA's Office of Justice Services (OJS) reports
different data to both FBI and the National Institute of Justice's
(NIJ) crime databases--violent crimes resulting in death get sent over
to the FBI, while missing persons data are sent to NIJ. This sounds
awfully inefficient and difficult to navigate.
1a. Has BIA considered proposing and/or supporting the
establishment of a single database for MMIW cases?
1b. Has BIA done any work toward this?
1c. How can Congress help consolidate this information to get more
accurate data?
Question 2. You mentioned during your testimony that your agency is
looking into working on and reopening cold cases regarding MMIW.
2a. How many cold cases exist? If an exact answer isn't feasible,
how many cold cases do you/your agency estimate to exist?
2b. How many years back do these cases span to be considered a
``cold case?''
2c. What level of priority do these cases receive compared to more
recent cases?
2d. Are additional agency resources or other sources of funding
available to help with these cold case investigations? If not, where
can such resources come from to aid in these cold cases?
Question 3. In October 2018, the Office of Justice Services offered
information about its work on sexual and domestic violence in Indian
Country under the ``Victim Assistance'' tab. This information is no
longer available online and was replaced with DOJ, HHS, and State
Department links. To note, the Administration for Native Americans
(ANA) is a much smaller department than BIA and they've already
released online resources regarding the MMIW crisis.
3a. Why has this information been taken down/deleted from your
agency's website within the last year?
3b. Does BIA plan to provide online resources for the MMIW crisis?
3c. Will BIA release the information generated from its listening
sessions to the public?
Question 4. As a general matter, emergency response training for
tribal police department officers is needed to decrease officer
response time to MMIW cases and to address the inflated levels of
violence/domestic violence on reservations. Additional safety measures
like the installation of surveillance cameras in areas of high crime/
gang activity and the expansion of patrol vehicle units also
disincentivize the continuation of these crimes.
4a. Is BIA working on preventative measures similarly to those
described above to reduce crime on reservations?
4b. What is BIA's funding priority related to these preventative
measures?
4c. What is BIA's funding priority and distribution for law
enforcement? How are these amounts calculated? And, how do they compare
to tribally-owned law enforcement?
______
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Addington.
The Chair now recognizes the Honorable John Anderson, the
U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JOHN ANDERSON, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE
DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, SANTA FE,
NEW MEXICO
Mr. Anderson. Chairman Gallego, Ranking Member Cook, and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
provide insight into the Department of Justice's work on
responding to the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous
Women. We appreciate your attention to this important issue,
and your efforts to understand the work being done to address
it at an interagency level.
The heart of the Department of Justice's work in Indian
Country, from law enforcement to prosecutions to policy
development and program support, is aimed at addressing the
unacceptably high rates of violent crime in Indian Country.
Missing persons and murder cases are different issues that
require different law enforcement responses.
Federal law enforcement investigates all suspected murders
in Indian Country, and U.S. Attorney's Offices around the
country work tirelessly with our law enforcement partners to
turn those investigations into prosecutable cases. In many
ways, cases of missing individuals can be especially
challenging to law enforcement in light of the myriad of
reasons that someone may go missing.
However, we recognize that the term ``Missing and
Murdered'' goes beyond investigative procedures or legal
definitions. ``Missing and murdered'' has become a call to
action to address the crimes and public safety conditions that
result in lost loved ones, including domestic violence, sexual
assault, substance abuse, and inadequate law enforcement
resources.
As stated in President Trump's Proclamation on Missing and
Murdered American Indian and Alaska Natives Awareness Day, we
must work together to correct these injustices. The Department
of Justice is expanding our efforts to respond to this call to
action.
We are working closely with our colleagues at the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the National Institute of Justice
to better understand how data on reports of Missing and
Murdered Indigenous Women are collected, how often these
numbers are updated, and what protocols are required to resolve
reported cases. We have begun a targeted effort to educate
Federal prosecutors and law enforcement, with an ultimate goal
of establishing improved and more standardized protocols for
data collection, reporting, and case management.
Ongoing coordination in Montana further illustrates the
Department's commitment to a collaborative approach to
addressing the missing and murdered issue. On June 12 of this
year, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Montana Department of
Justice, the FBI, and the BIA co-sponsored a day-long missing
persons training for both law enforcement and the public. Our
goal was to inform law enforcement and the public about the
problem of missing Indigenous persons and the various missing
persons databases and alerts.
In addition to honing our law enforcement response to
reports of missing or murdered people, the Department is
advancing our technology to better support law enforcement and
families investigating these cases. Our technological advances
include expanded efforts to assist tribes in integrating Amber
Alert protocols.
Our Office of Justice Programs, or OJP, provides funding
and technical assistance opportunities to integrate tribal
Amber Alert communication plans with state or regional plans.
And that helps us better align our resources with the needs
expressed by tribal representatives. Amber Alerts have become a
critical tool in responding quickly to reports of missing
persons.
Another one of our key systems is the National Institute of
Justice National Missing and Unidentified Persons system, or
NamUs. NamUs was developed to help identify unidentified
remains, locate missing persons, and bring resolution to
victims' families.
NamUs is a national centralized, web-based information
clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified,
and unclaimed person cases. NamUs combines technology, forensic
services, and investigative technical assistance to support and
assist law enforcement officials, medical examiners and
coroners, allied forensic professionals, and families from
across the country.
NIJ and NamUs staff have launched a targeted outreach and
training campaign to tribal law enforcement, leadership, and
community members to ensure Native communities are aware of the
NamUs technology and technical assistance, which are available
for free to all Tribal Nations.
Finally, the Department recently announced our fifth
expansion of the Tribal Access Program, or TAP, which provides
federally recognized tribes with the ability to access and
exchange data with the national crime information databases for
both criminal justice and non-criminal justice purposes.
This access to information empowers tribal law enforcement
to respond to reports of crime and missing persons in their
communities more swiftly and more effectively. Access through
TAP also enables tribes to coordinate more effectively with
other law enforcement agencies involved in responding to crimes
in Native communities.
The high statistics on crime in Indian Country motivate all
of us who dedicate our professional lives to partnering with
tribes to improve public safety in Native communities. We are
all mindful of the deeply personal and often too heartbreaking
stories faced by individuals, families, neighbors, and friends.
Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this serious
issue and the Department's activities in support of Native
communities. And I look forward to addressing any questions you
may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
Prepared Statement of John C. Anderson, United States Attorney,
District of New Mexico, U.S. Department of Justice
Chairman Gallego, Ranking Member Cook, and members of the
Subcommittee--Thank you for the opportunity to provide insight into the
Department of Justice's work in responding to the issue of missing and
murdered Indigenous women. We appreciate your attention to this
harrowing issue, and your efforts to understand the work at an
interagency level.
The heart of the Department of Justice's work in Indian Country,
from law enforcement to prosecutions to policy development and program
support, is aimed at addressing the unacceptably high rates of violent
crime in Indian Country. We are working to better understand how crime
rates and the challenging public safety conditions faced by too many
Native communities are linked with the rates of missing or murdered
Native people, especially Native women. From a legal perspective,
missing persons and murder cases are different issues that require
different law enforcement responses. Federal law enforcement has the
responsibility to investigate all suspected murders in Indian Country.
U.S. Attorneys' Offices around the country work with our law
enforcement partners in an attempt to turn those investigations into
prosecutable cases. In many ways, cases of missing individuals can be
especially challenging for law enforcement in light of the myriad of
reasons that someone may go missing. However, we recognize that the
term ``missing and murdered'' goes beyond investigative procedures or
legal definitions. ``Missing and murdered'' has become a call to action
to address the crimes and public safety conditions that result in lost
loved ones, including domestic violence, sexual assault, substance
abuse, and inadequate law enforcement resources. As stated in President
Trump's May 5, 2019 Proclamation on Missing and Murdered American
Indian and Alaska Natives Awareness Day, we must work together to
correct these injustices. The Department is expanding our efforts to
respond to this call to action.
In keeping with the White House's direction, the Departments of
Justice, the Interior, and Health and Human Services (HHS) are
collaborating on a cross-agency effort to address this multi-faceted
issue. Tribal representatives and your counterparts in the Senate have
identified several aspects of missing and murdered cases that require
focused attention from Federal agencies: unresolved, or ``cold,''
cases; validating reported data; improving data collection; improving
law enforcement protocols and our response to victims and their
families; researching a possible correlation between human trafficking
and cases of missing or murdered Natives; and addressing the missing
and murdered issue in urban communities. The Department of Justice will
serve as the lead agency for data-related topics and the improvement of
law enforcement protocols.
The U.S. Attorney community has already initiated work to address
these areas. Starting in early 2018 with the first meeting of the
Attorney General's Native American Issues Subcommittee for this
administration, we identified four priorities related to reducing
violent crime in Indian Country, including missing and murdered
Indigenous women and violence against women. Since that time, we have
addressed missing and murdered Indigenous persons at every meeting: we
had a dedicated panel on this topic at the national U.S. Attorneys
Conference and supported deeper discussion with agency partners at a
breakout session. We also included a training on this issue at the
recent Native American Issues Subcommittee meeting at Santa Ana Pueblo,
in my home district of New Mexico. Moreover, United States Attorneys
with Indian Country or federally recognized tribes in their district
have already begun working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) to identify open or outstanding missing and murdered Indigenous
persons cases for review. The Native American Issues Subcommittee Chair
and Vice Chair also met with senior FBI officials to discuss
investigative protocols and processes for murdered persons cases
arising out of Indian Country.
In addition to our discussions within the Department of Justice, we
are also conscious of the need to listen to and heed the voices of
those whose lives have been immediately impacted by this issue. Just 3
weeks ago, along with several of my U.S. Attorney colleagues, I
attended a tribal consultation in New Buffalo, Michigan, hosted by the
Department's Office on Violence Against Women. We heard firsthand, from
tribal leaders and others, about the emotional and psychological toll
that the high rate of missing and murdered takes on families and
communities, and we are committed to standing beside them to address
this issue.
We are working closely with our colleagues at the FBI to better
understand how data on reports of missing or murdered persons are
collected, how often those numbers are updated, and what protocols are
required to resolve reported cases. We have begun a targeted effort to
educate Federal prosecutors and law enforcement, with an ultimate goal
of establishing improved and more standardized protocols for data
collection, reporting, and case management. As we take steps to improve
our response to cases of missing or murdered Indigenous people, the
combined Federal team will reach out to our tribal, state and local
partners to ensure that the improved practices and protocols reflect
input from all of the agencies that contribute to cases of missing or
murdered persons.
Ongoing coordination in Montana further illustrates the
Department's commitment to a collaborative approach to address the
missing and murdered issue. On June 12 of this year, the U.S.
Attorney's Office, the Montana Department of Justice, the FBI, and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) co-sponsored a day-long Missing Persons
Training for both law enforcement and the public. Our goal was to
inform law enforcement and the public about the problem of missing
Indigenous persons, and the various missing persons databases and
alerts. Law enforcement were also trained on responses to missing
persons reports, and victim awareness and support. The public was also
trained on what to do when a loved one goes missing and on human
trafficking issues. Presenters included the FBI, BIA, National Crime
Information Center (NCIC), National Missing and Unidentified Persons
System (NamUs), the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
AMBER Alert, the Criminal Justice Information Network, Montana
Department of Justice Missing Persons Clearinghouse and Montana
Analysis Technical Information Center. More than 120 people attended,
including members of the general public, persons with tribal
affiliations, and criminal justice and law enforcement representatives.
We will be holding another statewide training this fall in Billings,
Montana.
At its request, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Montana has been
appointed to the Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force created by the
Montana legislature. In addition, earlier this year the U.S. Attorney's
Office in Montana coordinated with NamUs to provide training to the
tribal council, government officials and MMIW working group of the
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and to the public on the
Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. They are also coordinating to
provide training to the public on other Montana reservations this fall.
To further public awareness, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Montana is
also working on a public service announcement on what to do when a
loved one goes missing on or off a reservation.
The Department is eager to work with our Federal, state, tribal,
and local partners in any locality to ensure the full weight of our
collective efforts make a lasting impact on lowering the rates of
missing and murdered people, especially women, in Native communities.
In addition to honing our law enforcement response to reports of
missing or murdered people, the Department is advancing our technology
to better support law enforcement and families investigating these
cases. Our technological advancements include expanded efforts to
assist tribes interested in integrating AMBER Alert protocols. Our
Office of Justice Programs (OJP) provides funding and technical
assistance opportunities to integrate tribal AMBER Alert communication
plans with state or regional plans. OJP maintains evaluations of
readiness, training needs, technological challenges, and other
obstacles to integrating communication plans. These evaluations help us
align our resources with the needs expressed by tribal representatives.
AMBER Alerts have become a critical tool in responding quickly to
reports of missing persons. Our focus on improving law enforcement
information sharing will continue to be an important component of our
response to the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
In late July, I presented at the National Amber Alert in Indian
Country Symposium at Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico. Funded through OJP's
Amber Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program, and designed to
further implementation of the Ashlynne Mike Amber Alert in Indian
Country Act of 2018, this symposium focused on the logistics of
ensuring adequate collaborations between state and local Amber Alert
plans and tribal law enforcement. As the Committee is well aware, the
goal of extending Amber Alert to our tribal communities, and ensuring
appropriate access to Amber Alert by tribal law enforcement was
motivated by the unspeakably tragic abduction and murder of 11-year-old
Ashlynne Mike on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico. Participants at the
symposium got to hear directly from Ashlynne Mike's mother, Pamela
Foster. Her moving story about her daughter, and the personal
devastation she suffered upon learning of her loss, underscored the
critical importance of an effective Amber Alert system for our tribal
communities.
Another one of our key systems is the National Institute of
Justice's (NIJ) NamUs. NamUs was developed to help identify
unidentified remains, locate missing persons, and bring resolution to
victims' families. NamUs is a national, centralized, web-based
information clearinghouse and resource center for missing,
unidentified, and unclaimed person cases. NamUs combines technology,
forensic services, and investig/ative technical assistance from a
seasoned staff of subject matter experts to support and assist law
enforcement officials, medical examiners and coroners, allied forensic
professionals, and families from across the country.
The NamUs database is a permission-based system, meaning it offers
both a publicly viewable information and restricted criminal justice-
sensitive fields designed to protect privileged information. Cases are
only published in NamUs after rigorous vetting with the appropriate
local, state, Federal, or tribal law enforcement agency in order to
secure the privacy and protection of persons reported missing and to
ensure quality control over the missing person data. For instance, some
missing person reports involve individuals who do not wish for their
location to be known to family or associates due to circumstances
involving domestic violence and other safety issues. Since the majority
of the cases reported to FBI's NCIC are recovered quickly and use of
NamUs is not a mandatory part of all law enforcement protocols for
missing persons, many are never entered into NamUs. With the support of
the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), NamUs has been expanding to
include a Victim Services Division (VSD) to support the families and
loved ones of missing and murdered victims with a variety of services
and resources for coping with their loss. Although NamUs has been a
successful tool for law enforcement for many years, it will benefit
from a stronger emphasis on support for the families and loved ones of
the missing and murdered. Survivors often have few formal support
systems and often wait years for information about a missing loved one.
NIJ and NamUs staff have launched a targeted outreach campaign to
tribal law enforcement, leadership, and community members to ensure
Native communities are aware of the NamUs technology and technical
assistance, which are available for free to all tribal nations. More
online development will occur to reach out to tribes and their law
enforcement agencies, more training and public awareness about NamUs
among tribal communities, as well as targeted victim services for the
families of missing or murdered indigenous women and girls. NamUs has
helped resolve 400 cases and currently has 402 active AI/AN missing
persons cases, and we are working to ensure that any tribal agency
wishing to expand the use of NamUs has our full support. NIJ is
committed to working with Tribal nations directly to enhance technology
and provide training, better support and technical assistance, and
investigative and forensic services.
The Department recently announced our fifth expansion of the Tribal
Access Program (TAP), which provides federally recognized tribes with
the ability to access and exchange data with the national crime
information databases for both criminal justice and non-criminal
justice purposes. TAP provides training as well as software and
biometric/biographic kiosk workstations to process finger and palm
prints. This access to information empowers tribal law enforcement to
respond to reports of crime and missing persons in their communities
more swiftly and more effectively. Access through TAP also enables
tribes to coordinate more effectively with other law enforcement
agencies involved in responding to crimes in Native communities.
The Department has been working with your Senate colleagues on
several proposed bills that are intended to better equip Federal
agencies, states, and tribes in responding to reports of missing or
murdered persons. We have had a number of conversations on technical
aspects of their proposed legislation and believe the outreach has been
beneficial. For example, Senate staff have worked with Department of
Justice subject matter experts in developing language for S. 227
``Savanna's Act,'' which presents a series of clear and targeted
actions that would, in their current draft, improve tribal access to
databases, establish guidelines for responding to cases of missing and
murdered indigenous people, and create annual reporting requirements.
We welcome similar outreach for technical input from you or your staff
and would be happy to assist.
The high statistics on crime in Indian Country motivate all of us
who dedicate our professional lives to partnering with tribes to
improve public safety in Native communities. I want to underscore that
it is never just about the numbers for us. Many of us working in
support of Native communities have relatives and friends in the places
we strive to benefit, and we are all mindful of the deeply personal and
too-often heartbreaking realities faced by individuals, by families, by
neighbors and friends. Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss
this serious issue. If there is continued interest in discussing the
Department of Justice's activities in support of Native communities, we
would be happy to follow up with you or your staff.
______
Questions Submitted for the Record to U.S. Attorney Anderson, District
of New Mexico, U.S. Department of Justice
Mr. Anderson did not submit responses to the Committee by the
appropriate deadline for inclusion in the printed record.
Questions Submitted by Rep. Gallego
Question 1. How will the long-term plan of U.S. Attorneys
presenting at conferences address the on-the-ground efforts of the
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) movement?
Question 2. In your testimony, you mentioned that the Native
American Issues Subcommittee met with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) to discuss MMIW cases.
2a. What protocols did you discuss (i.e. jurisdictional,
investigative, etc.)?
2b. Will the information and notes gathered for the meetings become
public?
2c. Will there be a final report or promising strategies based on
this intergovernmental agency interaction?
Questions Submitted by Rep. Grijalva
Question 1. Annually, how many of the FBI-referred MMIW cases are
prosecutable?
Question 2. In your testimony, you mentioned that you attended a
tribal consultation in New Buffalo, Michigan.
2a. What will you do with this information?
2b. Is the information publicly available?
2c. Will you provide any other information developed from tribal
consultations to the Committee?
Questions Submitted by Rep. Haaland
Question 1. The Bridging Agency Data Gaps & Ensuring Safety Act
addresses the gaps in national MMIW data by requiring BIA direct-
service officers and FBI agents with jurisdiction in Indian Country to
report missing persons cases to the NamUs database.
1a. Considering that the FBI and BIA work collaboratively to
process crime scenes and collect evidence, why do you believe that MMIW
data collection remains a problem?
1b. Where can these two departments improve their coordination to
adequately collect the evidence and data relating to these crimes?
Question 2. The Office for Victims of Crime (OVD) fund application
process is lengthy and has several phases. Many tribes do not have the
administrative staff available to apply for these grants, although
these critical resources for Indigenous victims are greatly needed.
2a. Has your agency looked critically at this process? If so, does
BIA plan to simplify the application process or provide additional
administrative assistance to help tribes apply?
______
Mr. Gallego. Thank you. I thank the expert witnesses for
their powerful testimonies. I am reminding the Members that
Committee Rule 3(d) imposes a 5-minute limit on questions.
The Chairman will now recognize Members for any questions
they may wish to ask the witnesses. I will start by recognizing
myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Addington, in your testimony you mentioned that gaps in
data pose great obstacles to Murdered and Missing Indigenous
Women investigations, and that the alleviation of such gaps
remains of importance to BIA. What initiatives has your agency
undertaken to remedy this issue and alleviate gaps in the data?
Mr. Addington. Thank you for that question. One of the
things that we have done is we have partnered with NamUs to try
to start gathering the ``Missing and Murdered'' cases that are
still active throughout Indian Country and actually get them
into a system where we can have the data, where we can actually
pull and report and see exactly how many cases there are.
Currently, there is not a system in place that we can just
go to at the BIA and pull that data because some cases are
worked by other agencies as well. So, we are working with
NamUs--all the BIA has already been--and I have put a policy in
place that we will enter all of our data into the system, and
we are trying to get the tribal programs, encouraging them to
enter their data as well.
Once we get those cases entered into the NamUs system and
using the new data fields, that is going to give us the
opportunity to be able to pull a report and see exactly how
many cases that we have out there so we can start working on
investigating cold cases or cases that are active that we are
not aware of that may be older.
So, that is what the Department is doing right now to
address it.
Mr. Gallego. And since we are talking about NamUs, in your
testimony you mentioned your work along with NIJ to improve the
NamUs database so it can better address the MMIW cases. NamUs
has been around now for about 10--well, 11 years. However, it
has taken over 10 years to add basic tribal affiliation data
fields to its systems. Why did it take the Department of
Justice and BIA over 10 years to see the flaw in their data?
The second question is: Prior to the tribal affiliation
data field, what was used in place of that to actually collect
this--i.e., were all crimes listed as just ``Indian'' or some
similar type of category?
Mr. Addington. Prior to 2012, 2013 at the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, we actually collected additional data from the tribes
and the BIA programs specifically to BIA that was outside of
the UCR data. So, once we started just submitting the UCR data,
we quit collecting that information because of getting the
information transferred from the BIA over to the FBI in the
exportable file from the tribes. It became really burdensome
for the tribes, so we tried to streamline that process, which
caused us not to collect that data any more.
Mr. Gallego. On that note, what is going to happen with
that data, previously collected information that was sorted
differently than it is now in the NamUs system?
Mr. Addington. The data we collected before did not have
the specific data fields where it broke the data down. We just
collected the numbers from the tribes, so like missing person
numbers. But it did not go into detail of the cases or
anything.
By working with NamUs and adding those specific fields in
there, we can actually determine what their tribal affiliation
is, whether they have gone missing from Indian Country or off
of Indian Country, because of course we only have jurisdiction
on Indian Country for the BIA. So, we can actually pair those
down and see specifically where the cases are coming from and
differentiate between the state cases, the BIA cases, and the
Federal cases.
Mr. Gallego. To follow up, back in December 2018 you
testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in a
hearing titled, ``Missing and Murdered: Confronting the Silent
Crisis in Indian Country.'' We read your public testimony then.
I have noticed that the testimony you submitted this week is
very similar to the testimony that you had last December. In
fact, it looks like an entire paragraph of your current
testimony detailing BIA's new training program initiatives has
been copied and pasted verbatim from your prior testimony.
With that being said, recognizing that we are in dire
straits in the status of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women,
how do you explain what the BIA has been doing in the last
year? For me, from my perspective and the staff perspective,
what we see is nothing but inaction. So, I would like to
understand: What is the actual action that is going to be
coming out of this?
And please explain to us what other tasks or actions your
office has taken in regards to dealing with MMIW.
Mr. Addington. The one thing that we have done is expand
our training and our awareness out there. Getting more training
out to any law enforcement programs was crucial because we
identified that there were some response issues in some of the
previous cases that we reviewed.
So, getting additional training out there so folks know how
to respond--because a missing person report that comes in is
not necessarily a crime when it is reported in to our police
departments out there. We have to treat those with more or
better response, so that is what we have tried to put in place,
to make sure folks are trained.
We have redone our policies internally to make sure that we
have strengthened our policy on the response of missing persons
and abducted persons for the BIA as well. And then we have
started holding sessions to listen to tribal leadership on what
the issues actually are out in Indian Country. And we are
looking at different options, like cold case task forces,
different things like that, to actually start addressing some
of these cases that are out there that have not been solved
over the years.
Mr. Gallego. OK. Well, I will come back to this.
Now I recognize Ranking Member Cook.
Mr. Cook. Thank you very much.
When you were talking, you mentioned the Amber Alerts. For
years, we never had the Amber Alerts or similar programs where
you could highlight it right away. And I know you are doing
that, but I am not sure if it is coordinated.
And can I get some feel whether that would immediately go
out through all of Indian Country when we have somebody missing
or we have a tragic situation, where people might have data
that could help law enforcement? I am just not getting a good
feeling, because in California we tried to do that for years
and it never got that way until, finally, it was adopted and it
was a great program.
And here is where I am going with this, and I will let you
comment, because on the seriousness and the importance to this
Subcommittee and to the whole Committee, I am wondering if we
should elevate this to the situation where at least you could
send us, as people that have oversight responsibility and enact
laws and regulations, that hey, what is this? You have had
three Amber Alerts in this area here. What are your
recommendations? What has been done?
And I don't want to micro-manage. But the situation is so
bad right now that--I was in the Marine Corps, and it needs
command attention. So, what I was just suggesting in terms of
informing us on this, with the circumstances and recommended
action, including, if need be, suggested legislation. What do
you think of that proposal?
Mr. Addington. Thank you for that question. I absolutely
think the Amber Alert system should be expanded and that we do
have some Indian Country programs that actually have been able
to make Amber Alert notifications. And we have some states that
actually have a state system as well.
So, we try to get the information out. When something meets
the criteria to do an Amber Alert, we try to get the
information out as wide as we can in those situations. And
there are also some localized situations. If we have a missing
person that may not reach up to an Amber Alert situation, we
have some notification systems locally that we can actually get
that information out so we can be on the lookout for that
person before it becomes a criminal offense or they get harmed.
Mr. Cook. Yes. And I don't want to continue on this, but I
just want to emphasize again, we had a situation a number of
years ago where a number of people were killed. And it ended up
that it was the same murderer--somebody in law enforcement, I
might add--that had some real problems. Actually committed a
crime, and I won't go into that.
But the DNA evidence, everything else, which has moved
light years in the last decade, I would say, that we can share
all over. And if it is not being done or something like that,
then I think maybe--I am speaking just for myself, not on
behalf of the whole Committee--but I think a lot of us are just
frustrated.
In the short time that we have in Congress, we want to do
something because the stats and the number of folks are so
unsatisfactory right now. So, I am looking for suggestions,
proposals, that we might have as part of oversight or even, as
I mentioned earlier, with law to do this.
How many people got killed in California because nothing
was done when people didn't even recognize it? It is a large
state, granted, but they were all over the state. And somebody
finally said--wait a minute. We have the same killer all over
the place.
I am not saying that is the scenario. But I think, loud and
clear, we want to be involved. And at least some type of Amber
Alert to at least this Committee, should be in order, with what
happened, the circumstances. And recommended congressional
action, if any, should be taken. Thank you. That was just a
comment.
I yield.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Ranking Member.
I now recognize Chairman Grijalva.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Recently,
the Trump administration hosted a roundtable discussion on the
theme of ``Reclaiming our Native Communities'' with tribal
stakeholders. In BIA's testimony, you acknowledged the
discussions and noted that a roundtable occurred in Sacaton,
Arizona last May.
However, DOI's online press release states that the
discussion occurred at Sacaton on June 11, and that
representatives from BIA and ANA were both present at that
particular roundtable discussion. However, it still remains
unclear how many of these discussions occurred. You can notice
that by the date discrepancy, and what was established at them.
So, Commissioner Hovland and Deputy Bureau Director
Addington, is there a public readout or transcript from this
roundtable that is available to the Committee or to the public?
Mr. Addington. There is not yet. We have held three so far.
Mr. Grijalva. So, I am assuming you will release public
information related to who attended the meetings and general
notes and summaries regarding those meetings when you are
finished with these roundtables?
Mr. Addington. I am not sure if something will be released
to the public. I know the information will be used for tribal
comments and what the tribes are wanting us to do in those
communities.
Mr. Grijalva. And do you consider this tribal consultation
in any way?
Mr. Addington. No. These were listening sessions with the
tribal leadership.
Mr. Grijalva. So, concrete plans of action were proposed or
considered during these discussions? Or was it more of an open-
ended kind of a discussion?
Mr. Addington. No. We did discuss some of our thoughts on
cold case task forces and some of the things that the
Department would like to do to address some of these issues.
Those were discussed. We did a presentation for tribal leaders.
But we wanted to hear from the tribal leadership of what their
thoughts are and what ideas that they have to address these
issues in their community because they are best to know what is
going on in their communities.
Mr. Grijalva. OK. I think there is a great deal of interest
on the part of the Committee, and certainly the Chairman and
Ranking Member, to have as much information as available from
these areas in order to continue to not only be informed but to
know what direction we need to be taking legislatively.
Mr. Addington, a couple of questions that have to do with
the comments that you made. And it was testimony relative to--
you highlighted the importance of the Violence Against Women
Act, specifically how this legislation has helped illustrate to
Federal agencies the higher rates of violence against women in
Indian Country.
Would you agree that the Violence Against Women Act needs
to be reauthorized?
Mr. Addington. Yes. Absolutely. Anything, any tools that we
can give Indian Country to better enforce crimes against our
Native women and community members we would happily support.
Mr. Grijalva. How many officers are currently on staff
within BIA's police forces? And is that a sufficient number to
deal with the crisis that this hearing is about?
Mr. Addington. Well, I can tell you law enforcement
programs throughout Indian Country are all under-resourced
right now. It has been very difficult to recruit not only for
tribal law enforcement programs, BIA programs, but either other
Federal agencies and state agencies.
We have talked to a number of leaders in these different
law enforcement programs, and everyone is running across the
issues of recruitment. So, they are definitely not resourced
where they need to be, or every one of them is not. Some tribal
programs are better than others just because of the location
that they are in, and they are able to find applicants for law
enforcement programs.
Mr. Grijalva. So, it is insufficient?
Mr. Addington. I think we could always use more resources,
yes.
Mr. Grijalva. Madam Commissioner, in your testimony you
mentioned your work this year with the Intradepartmental
Council on Native American Affairs. Could I ask you who is
involved in the council? What types of policies or plans are
proposed on the specific issue for this hearing--Murdered and
Missing Indigenous Women and human trafficking issues? And is
that information available to the public? Is information about
these meetings public or not?
Ms. Hovland. Thank you for that question. The
Intradepartmental Council on Native American Affairs was
established by law under the Native American Programs Act. It
is an internal work group designed really to ensure that at
HHS, when we are developing policy and budgets that affect
Native Americans, that we are working collaboratively.
So, it is our internal work group, and we have met three
times. Yesterday was our third meeting. And it is leadership
across HHS, so SAMHSA, CMS, HRSA, IHS, ACF, all of the
stakeholders. And, yes, MMIW, as well as it cross-sections with
opioids and substance abuse in human trafficking, is one of our
priority areas.
We receive our input through tribal consultations, the
Secretary's Tribal Advisory Council, which is taking place this
week in Washington, DC, as well as next week in Temecula. I am
hosting consultation and will have a couple of hours for tribal
hours to visit with the ICNAA body.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. My time is up? OK. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Gallego. We will have more rounds of questions. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
I now recognize Representative San Nicolas.
Mr. San Nicolas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Can you imagine if the women murder rates in Washington, DC
were 10 times the national average? Or can you imagine if the
women murder rates in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Houston, or
New York, or Miami were 10 times the national average? We would
be alarmed to no end.
But what makes these statistics even more horrific is that
our Indigenous populations are already distressed populations.
So, they are 10 times the national average in already
distressed populations.
So, as I take all of this in--I am a new Member of
Congress. It has been an honor to be a member of this
Committee. I am the Representative from Guam. I have an
Indigenous population on Guam. We are an unrecognized people;
hopefully one day we can be. But one of the things that scares
my people from even being recognized is the fact that we have
these kinds of statistics that go unaddressed in already
existing recognized peoples. And constitutionally, the
responsibility of this country rests here in this Congress to
be able to address these kinds of concerns.
And as I listen to the testimony, I hear a lot of movement,
but I am not quite certain that there are going to be actual
outcomes.
So, my question is very specific. If we have a statistic
that says that the murder rates for our women in Indigenous
communities is 10 times the national average, what is the
timeline for us to drive this figure back down to the national
average? Are we going to drive it down in the next year? The
next 5 years? The next 10 years? What is the timeline for us to
be able to anticipate when we are going to be able to come back
to this Committee and say that we have solved this problem and
we are no longer so egregious in these kind of statistics?
Mr. Anderson. Congressman, thank you for the question. I
wish I could tell you a time frame. I wish I could tell you we
would come back here in 6 months, a year, 2 years, and have
driven those rates down to an acceptable level--not that there
is an acceptable level of murder in our society. But the points
you make are fair ones.
I can tell you, from the Department of Justice's
activities, we are actively engaged, along with our Federal law
enforcement partners, in making every effort to reduce the
unacceptable levels of violence that we do see in our tribal
communities.
In my office, we have 11 full-time prosecutors who are
dedicated to working with our Federal law enforcement and local
and tribal law enforcement partners in investigating and
prosecuting criminal cases, principally violent crime cases,
that occur in our tribal communities. I serve on the Native
American Issues Subcommittee of the Attorney General's Advisory
Committee, and it is an exceptionally active subcommittee that
works to address, on a holistic, comprehensive level, the
issues of violent crime that we see across the country in our
tribal communities.
The short answer is, I do not have a time frame for you. I
wish that I did. But we are actively engaged. We are devoted to
pursuing criminal justice in Indian Country, to investigating
and prosecuting cases to the best of our abilities. I continue
to be hopeful, as I know my Federal law enforcement partners
do, that those efforts will ultimately yield a reduction in the
unacceptably high rates of violent crime in our tribal
communities.
Ms. Hovland. Thank you for your question. I really
appreciate that.
At the Intradepartmental Council on Native American
Affairs, we discussed and we are going to be setting goals and
benchmarks, we are in the process of that. I am Deputy
Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and
Families as well. And really, at ACF, we are designed to help
strengthen individuals, families, and communities.
And there are a lot of great things taking place in our
Native communities through their ACF programs. We are going to
be visiting some of our tribes that have great one-stop shops--
because that is what we are hearing, is there needs to be a
one-stop shop of wrap-around services--and then encourage that
in other communities.
But I also wanted to let you know that I had the honor of
traveling to your homeland this summer with members from our
ICNAA group, the Intradepartmental Council, and had a great
roundtable that was hosted by your governor and lieutenant
governor on human trafficking. And we are working in
partnership with them to be able to come up with a strategy.
Again, we want to be respectful of culture, which is why we
are trying to get to the different regions and develop them.
Mr. San Nicolas. My time is running short. I appreciate the
answers. I am sure, Mr. Addington, you will say something
similar.
The reason why I raised the point in the beginning of my
statement about how this would be considered a national crisis
if it was a statistic affecting any one of our cities is,
appreciating the work that you do, for us not to be able to
have a concrete timeline and to be acting with a sense of
urgency underscores the fact that we need to do a lot more than
what we currently are.
And what this Congress needs to do to support you, I think,
is something that we will be more than willing to entertain.
So, I would suggest that we work to a level where we develop
the strategy to be able to come back with a timeline. If this
was happening in DC, or LA, or Houston, or New York, or Miami,
we would have a timeline. We would say, we are going to drive
this down in the next year or the next 2 years.
And for us to be able to say, ``We are going to be able to
do our best,'' I think is just very sad.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gallego. I now recognize Representative Case of Hawaii.
Mr. Case. Thank you, Chair.
Like my colleague from Guam, I represent an Indigenous
population. I represent the Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, the
Native Hawaiians. There are well over half a million Native
Hawaiians living in our country, of whom roughly 300,000 live
in Hawaii proper.
This number is obviously large, much larger than many of
the federally recognized tribes, and they also suffer from many
of the indicia that you have identified in your testimony,
whether it be outright missing and murdered Indigenous women,
Native Hawaiian women, to domestic violence, to crime rates, to
sexual assault, to lost loved ones. Every indicia also impacts
Native Hawaiians.
And I say this not only on behalf of Native Hawaiians but
on behalf of many Indigenous peoples throughout our country who
do not fit easily into your definitions of ``Indian Country''
and ``Tribes'' and ``Reservations'' and all of the more
structured Federal 150 years' worth of law dealing with
Indigenous peoples.
And I think that sometimes they get left out of this
equation. Certainly, I know that Native Hawaiians feel that
they are often treated as an afterthought by the Federal
Government when they are Indigenous peoples and when they
deserve the same attention when they have the same consequence,
deserve the same attention, the same programs.
So, testimony that says Native Americans and Alaska Natives
that does not also say Native Hawaiians is just a knee-jerk
reaction from me: Why not? And I am sure the gentleman from
Guam would feel the same way.
First of all, I want to make that point because every time
we talk about any issue in this Subcommittee or in your work, I
hope you always think about Native Hawaiians and other
Indigenous peoples beyond what you consider Native Americans
and Alaska Natives, No. 1.
No. 2, in that vein, have you considered or consulted with
the Native Hawaiian community, which is structured and
represented, including the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations
in the Department of the Interior, an existing office, on this
particular issue? So, in other words, has there been outreach?
Has there been inclusion? Has there been consultation? And if
not, can you do that? Ms. Hovland, I think you are probably the
appropriate person.
Ms. Hovland. Yes. Under our statute, under the Native
American Programs Act, Native Americans are defined by law,
which includes Native Hawaiians and the Native Pacific Island
relatives also. So, yes, during that period that we were in
Guam, we were over for 2 weeks in the Pacific Basin, and we
actually had 2 days of roundtables which we partnered with the
Office of Hawaiian Affairs. And one of the topics was human
trafficking and murdered Indigenous peoples.
And we had law enforcement there since Interior does not
have jurisdiction with law enforcement. We also did have the
Department of the Interior's Insular Affairs present, and we
had very good dialogue. We are working with those stakeholders
that were identified as we develop, again, a plan specific to
their communities and considering the culture.
So, we want the community members to lead it, and we will
help develop the framework and see what services we can provide
to support that.
Mr. Case. Certainly. I am willing to work with you on that
on behalf of Native Hawaiians, and not just in Hawaii but
everywhere.
And then to Mr. Addington and Mr. Anderson, any particular
comment on focus or inclusion or consideration of Native
Hawaiians and perhaps other Indigenous peoples not within the
structured Federal regime?
Mr. Addington. Well, for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, of
course, like Ms. Hovland said, our problem is that we have no
jurisdiction there. So, that is one of the reasons we have not
engaged in that side of the house, is we are trying to come up
with some concrete solutions and things for places where we
have jurisdiction and where we have a need for resources right
now.
Mr. Case. Fair enough. Well, we would like to get into your
jurisdiction at some point.
Mr. Addington. You bet.
Mr. Case. And Mr. Anderson?
Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Congressman. I will have to get
back to the Committee about what efforts are particular to
Native Hawaiians. We do have jurisdictional efforts there
insofar as it is not considered Indian Country for purposes of
the Federal law enforcement.
Mr. Case. Fair enough. But from your perspective in the bar
association and the other efforts that you are going through,
please just consider my comments and take that back and log it
into your thinking whenever you are dealing with these
particular issues. I appreciate the effort.
Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Representative Case.
I now recognize Representative Haaland.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you so much, Chairman.
Before I begin my brief statement and questions, I wanted
to recognize Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Crotty, who
worked tirelessly on the PROTECT Act, which was signed into
law, that makes tribes eligible for Federal grants from the DOJ
to aid in implementing the Amber Alert system, and has worked
tirelessly on the Navajo Nation and the state of New Mexico on
missing and murdered Indigenous women. And I thank you for
being here.
Before I begin my questions, I would like to briefly state
that the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women issue has been
one of my top priorities this Congress. And I thank each of you
for being here today. I really appreciate you coming and
speaking with us.
The U.S. Government has a trust responsibility to Indian
tribes. Statistics show that 8 in 10 Indigenous women will be
raped, stalked, or abused in the course of their lifetimes, and
the National Institute of Justice has stated that 84 percent of
Native women experience violence.
This crisis has very deep and long-standing roots in our
country. It is something that just did not start a few
generations ago. On some Native lands, Indian women are
murdered at more than 10 times the national average, so we can
see why, as a topic of discussion, that we need to take action
to stop this silent crisis.
This week is the 25th anniversary of the Violence Against
Women Act, which has critical provisions for Indian Country to
protect Native women. But more work must be done. The Violence
Against Women Act was passed in the House in April of this
year, and it has yet to see the light of day on the Senate
side. That bears repeating: It has yet to see the light of day
on the Senate side.
My first question is for Mr. Anderson. Thank you so much
for being here with us from New Mexico. I introduced the
Bridging Agency Data Gaps and Ensuring Safety Act, which partly
focuses on law enforcement data-sharing with tribes through the
DOJ's Tribal Access Program, TAP is the acronym.
Your agency has previously stated that only about 75 out of
573 tribes will participate in TAP by the end of the 2019
fiscal year, and this seems really low. Do you believe that TAP
is under-utilized by tribes? And why, in your opinion?
Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Representative. TAP is a valuable
tool to promote the sharing of information between tribal law
enforcement and to obtain tribal law enforcement access to
national criminal information databases.
My colleagues at the Office of Tribal Justice within the
Department of Justice are proactively working to roll out the
TAP to more tribes across the country. I expect that at this
rate, we are getting it out to 25 tribes per year, and by the
end of 2020 we hope to get TAP Light, which is the software
exclusively, as opposed to the hardware, out to all tribes that
have their own law enforcement agency. So, it is actively being
pushed out.
In terms of being under-utilized, I think it depends on
which tribe we are talking about. As a rule, I don't believe it
is under-utilized. I think it has provided a valuable avenue
for tribes and tribal law enforcement to obtain access to those
national databases.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you. When you say that it is being
rolled out to more tribes as we move forward, what is the
application process like for tribes to participate in TAP each
year? And do you believe that the application process is any
type of barrier to their participation?
Mr. Anderson. No, Representative. The application process,
there is an initial application that simply requests
information about the tribal infrastructure, what type of
tribal law enforcement exists, what type of administration
capabilities there may be.
So, there is an initial, I wouldn't even call it an
application. I would call it more of a vetting process to help
the Department understand how the TAP can be utilized most
effectively. I don't believe that consists or considers a
substantial barrier to the tribal application and access to the
TAP.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you. I am almost out of time. I will try
to fit this last one in.
This is still for you, Mr. Anderson--the BADGES Act also
requires BIA direct service officers and FBI agents with
jurisdiction in Indian Country to report missing persons cases
in the National Missing and Unidentified Person System Database
since there are currently large gaps in data collection, making
it difficult for Congress to know how expansive this issue
really is.
Even though the FBI and BIA work together to process crime
scenes and evidence collection, why do you believe the data
collection is lacking? Where can these two departments improve
their coordination to adequately collect evidence and data of
these crimes?
Mr. Anderson. Representative, I think the data collection,
where we are most in need of improvement is in facilitating the
effective exchange of data between tribal law enforcement and
the Federal law enforcement counterparts. I believe that the
TAP certainly would help that. The expanded efforts to improve
public awareness of and access to NamUs, and inputting data
into NamUs, would also facilitate that exchange of information.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you. I yield, Chairman. Thank you for
allowing me the time.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Representative. We will be doing a
second round of questions, too, if you have follow-up
questions.
I want to switch back to Mr. Anderson. Last December, the
National Institute of Justice's Director of Investigative and
Forensic Sciences, Gerald LaPorte, noted that Fiscal Year 2018
was the first time that the Office of Justice Programs received
funding from the Crime Victims funds to meet the needs of
Native victims.
Does that means that before Fiscal Year 2018, there were no
funds specifically allocated to meet the needs of Native
victims of violence? And if so, why?
Mr. Anderson. Representative, I know that in Fiscal Year
2018 and in Fiscal Year 2019 there is a substantial set-aside
from the office OVC funds, obviously, for tribal projects and
to serve victims of crime within tribal communities. I believe
there were funds before that, but I would have to confirm that
for the Committee.
Mr. Gallego. If you find out, can you make sure you let my
staff get that information?
Why do you believe you were sent as the designee from the
National Institute of Justice if you cannot really speak to
their operations? You have a lot of great experience,
obviously, as a U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, a state that has
many of our Tribal Nations. But it is odd that you were picked
specifically because we really need more information when it
comes to the National Institute of Justice.
In your opinion, did they tell you why?
Mr. Anderson. I am sorry, Congressman. Why I was sent
today?
Mr. Gallego. Yes.
Mr. Anderson. I am heavily involved in the issues that the
Committee is here to address today. I am active in the Native
American Issues Subcommittee, very active in particular on the
issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. I like to think
that I am generally knowledgeable about those issues. My
knowledge is not perfect, but I suppose I was deemed a suitable
candidate because of my overall involvement in these issues.
Mr. Gallego. Yes. No doubt you are very knowledgeable. Like
I say, we have a lot of questions that would have been, I
think, better answered by somebody from the National Institute
of Justice. But in terms of your personal experience, you are
very well-grounded there.
In total, how much money was awarded from the Crime Victims
fund?
Mr. Anderson. Congressman, I believe it was approximately
$100 million. I know, of the set-aside last year----
Mr. Gallego. Do you know how long these grants go for? Is
there a shelf life to them?
Mr. Anderson. I don't believe there is. I believe they are
no year funds.
Mr. Gallego. OK. Do you know----
Mr. Anderson. Three years.
Mr. Gallego. Three years? OK. Do you know who some of these
awardees are? And what type of programs are they specifically
funding?
Mr. Anderson. The OVC, the Office of Victims of Crimes
funds, Congressman?
Mr. Gallego. Yes.
Mr. Anderson. They can fund any type of program that is
directly related to victims of crime. They are subject to
applications, but any type of program, as long as it directly
serves victims of crime, is eligible for funding under the OVC
programs.
Mr. Gallego. I am now more speaking to your experience as a
U.S. Attorney of New Mexico. As you are aware, there have been
jurisdictional challenges that have impeded the prosecution of
cases in the past, allowing crime against Indigenous
communities to go unpunished.
What steps has your office taken to improve prosecution of
these crimes and reduce barriers to enforcement in Indian
Country? And what can you recommend that other offices do the
same as yours?
Mr. Anderson. Congressman, are you referring specifically
to jurisdictional challenges or challenges more broadly of
prosecutions in Indian Country?
Mr. Gallego. Both. Let's just hit both.
Mr. Anderson. Certainly. On the jurisdictional front, one
of the important things that we do is collaborate with our
state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners. Given that
New Mexico has a substantial number of Pueblos, and we also
have the Navajo Nation, it is important for us, in identifying
where a crime occurred, that we have effective communication
and collaboration with those state, local, and tribal partners.
The number of cases in my office really turn on the actual
location of the offense and whether that is within the
boundaries of a Pueblo or Indian Country, as the term is
defined by statute. So, one of the most effective tools we have
is that collaboration and identifying those boundaries and
working with state, local, and tribal partners.
I would also point to the cross-commissioning that we do
under a special law enforcement commission to allow those state
and local partners to enforce Federal law along with our
Federal law enforcement partners, and that ameliorates some of
the jurisdictional challenges we face.
Mr. Gallego. I now yield to Delegate San Nicolas.
Mr. San Nicolas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Addington, I wanted to follow up on a statement you
made earlier when responding to questions from Chairman
Grijalva. You mentioned that there are impediments to law
enforcement recruitment with respect to getting individuals to
do that job in Indian Country. Can you elaborate on what those
impediments are and what the possible solutions could be for us
to be able to fix that problem?
Mr. Addington. You bet. Thanks for that question. One of
the things that we are seeing is just that nobody wants to get
into public safety any more like they used to years ago. That
is one of the biggest things that we are seeing, the applicant
pool is just not there for positions.
We advertise a position--where we used to get maybe 15, 20
people on an applicant list, now we are maybe getting 1 or 2,
and it may be somebody that cannot pass a background. Of
course, that person will not be able to go into that position
because they cannot pass a background. So, the No. 1 thing that
we are seeing is there are not enough applicants. There is not
enough interest of getting into public safety programs out
there.
Then on the other side, there are a couple other things.
The salary ranges for tribal law enforcement, BIA law
enforcement, is lower than most other programs. They can go to
work for a county, or a city, or another agency and make more
money working, get better equipment, different things.
That is one of the other obstacles that we have. We train
folks, and then they go to work at another program as well. But
I think the No. 1 thing that we are having a problem with is
just getting people interested in getting into public safety in
general.
Mr. San Nicolas. When you mentioned that the salary for BIA
law enforcement is low, is that relative to other law
enforcement positions that are outside of BIA?
Mr. Addington. That is correct. It would be like other
Federal programs. We are maybe a grade step lower than our
Federal counterparts doing the same or similar job in another
Federal program. But like counties, states, some of those
programs pay well above what the tribal law enforcement program
pays because their salary is based upon the allocations that
they receive to run their programs.
Mr. San Nicolas. When was the last time we have had a wage
study done for BIA law enforcement?
Mr. Addington. I don't know that there has been a specific
wage study done. I know we have looked at our salary ranges a
couple different times. We did a full ``Protecting Indian
Country'' report back in 2010. And then we looked at it again a
year and a half ago, and still determined that the tribal and
BIA law enforcement's salaries are lower than other programs.
Mr. San Nicolas. But those evaluations and determinations
are all internal?
Mr. Addington. Yes.
Mr. San Nicolas. BIA has not engaged the services of a
third party wage study professional firm to be able to evaluate
whether or not BIA law enforcement wages are maintained at the
national average? I mean, if we are paying law enforcement on
BIA below the national average, then it helps to really explain
why we are having crime rates over the national average. So, we
have not engaged a third party wage expert to be able to
evaluate the wages of BIA law enforcement?
Mr. Addington. We have not went to a third party or
anything. And it depends on where you are at across the
country, too. Some places we are comparable or we may be above
what a county sheriff's department is actually making. So, it
is relative to where you are across Indian Country as well. It
is not across the board. Every location is either being paid
less or more. So, it depends on what region you are in and what
area as well.
Mr. San Nicolas. If the law enforcement salaries on the BIA
side are below what they typically would get even in other
Federal law enforcement positions, how is that salary range
even determined?
Mr. Addington. It is determined on the GS scale and by the
appropriations that we have for each one of those programs.
Mr. San Nicolas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gallego. I now recognize Chairman Grijalva.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much in the reaction from all
three witnesses. And I appreciate your time very much.
It is unfortunate, as the Chairman pointed out, that the
National Institute of Justice is not here. There are a lot of
other pertinent questions that we have that should have been
directed to them.
But let's just talk about some issues that are part and
parcel to the whole discussion. My colleague, Ms. Haaland,
illustrated the piece of legislation that she has and that we
support. But in terms of legislation, where we deal with issues
such as salary parity, even within our own jurisdiction, this
Committee, we have law enforcement in our national parks.
And I think that is a fair comparison, if one exists, that
salary parity is an impediment to recruitment and retention. I
think we need to look at that. And I appreciate that
information, so that would be mandated.
We would be mandating issues in legislation and codifying,
mandating the points that the Ranking Member brought up about
data sharing as a mandate, and as a mandate, the coordination
and collaboration of interagency efforts. And victim support,
training, and support for victims' families and tribal
communities would be part of something mandated, which is all
part of discussions and legislation that is going around.
Your reaction to the process that you are undertaking, with
no reflection one way or another on my part, and a mandated
legislation that has a timeline when this has to be
implemented. Your reaction to that?
I know it is a general question, but something that I think
we have to also look at in this discussion is what
legislatively can we do to prod this forward and to set some
expectation and a timeline rather than to continue to have
updates that frustrate some of the Members, and certainly
myself, in terms of what movement we are making. At least we
have a benchmark. Your reaction to that?
Mr. Addington. I think data collection is one of the things
that we need to do promptly. I think there needs to be a
timeline on what data is being collected, and it is mandatory
that we are collecting that data so we know we can use that
information to identify crime trends and what is going on out
there. I am in full support of timelines on implementing new
fields of data so we can share that data and collect it from
everybody.
Mr. Grijalva. One of the mandates, of course, would have to
be resources to support whatever legislative initiative.
Mr. Addington. Correct.
Ms. Hovland. And if I can add, sir----
Mr. Grijalva. Please.
Ms. Hovland [continuing]. One of the other barriers we have
been identifying in our visits in the urban Native centers is
having a uniform code for when data is collected at screening
so that they can transfer to other data systems and it is a
standard code, as well as having--a lot of our Native peoples
are classified incorrectly at screenings because sometimes
there is not ``American Indian, Alaska Native, or Pacific
Islander'' on there. So, that is another area that needs to be
looked at also so that we can get better representation at
screenings.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Chairman.
I now recognize Representative Haaland.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Chairman.
I have one last question for Mr. Anderson. As you are
aware, urban areas like Albuquerque, where you are based, have
high numbers of urban Indians due to the surrounding tribal
lands, and jobs, of course. Has your agency done any work to
address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis in
urban locations with high populations of Native Americans, or
have suggestions about what can be done to help reduce the
number of missing and trafficked Native women even though it is
outside Indian Country?
Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Representative. And the last point
you make is an important one, given our limited criminal
jurisdiction in Indian Country. And when we deal with Native
populations and crimes committed against Native populations
that live in urban areas, obviously the principal law
enforcement responsibility falls to the state and local
authorities.
In terms of what we can do to facilitate communication, the
types of things we've been discussing today in the nature of
information-sharing are going to be our principal priorities
there, so developing protocols to ensure that information is
shared between tribal law enforcement and local law
enforcement, be it in Albuquerque or any other metropolitan
area we may be talking about.
I think that type of consistent information-sharing,
consistent protocols and procedures as between tribal law
enforcement and local, would go a long way toward addressing
the type of missing persons issue we've been talking about
today.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
Mr. Addington, before I was sworn in to Congress, I
attended the Senate's oversight hearing on Missing and Murdered
Indigenous Women. That was back in December. Senator Udall, who
has been a great lead on this issue in New Mexico, cited ``poor
coordination, limited data, and insufficient resources'' as
barriers to solving these cases during that hearing.
Your testimony also implies better interagency coordination
and communication is needed. What has the BIA done since the
December Senate hearing to improve interagency coordination,
and what more efforts are needed from the FBI to assist your
agency?
Mr. Addington. Thank you for that question. We work very
closely with the FBI's Indian Country unit on these issues. I
talk to staff in that unit, if not weekly, every other week or
every couple of weeks on Indian Country issues. So, we do
coordinate on response as well locally. We are actually working
with our local FBI partners out in our service agencies to
where we are coordinating and collaborating on making sure we
get the proper response to these reports that come in for
missing persons.
And just an example: In 1 month, we had 80 missing person
reports that came in to one of our police departments, or a
couple of them, in Montana in a month. And the coordination
since then with the FBI and our other local partners has just
greatly increased, and we were able to recover and find all of
these missing persons.
And it still goes on today. We still have a high number of
missing person reports that come in, and by our collaborating
better with our other partners, we are able to respond to those
more quickly and we are able to recover those folks in a short
time period.
So, I think since the last hearing, just us talking with
our other Federal, state, and local partners, and the great
work of the U.S. Attorney's Office Native American
Subcommittee--and we have been attending those meetings with
them. They have put a lot of different training sessions in
place, where we can talk and collaborate in those efforts as
well.
I think we are getting to where we need to be to make sure
that we are responding to these cases and getting the adequate
representation for those victims.
Ms. Haaland. OK. Thank you. And it is ironic that the FBI,
when they first became an agency, one of the first big cases
that they solved were the Osage murders in Oklahoma Indian
Country. And I think it is interesting that that is the first
thing they did to really hone their skills as a bureau. And,
again, we have Indian Country crimes that need to be solved.
Do you believe the FBI is making adequate effort to assist
in coordinating, collecting data, and providing resources to
Indian Country, for these Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
cases?
Mr. Addington. Thanks for that question. I think it depends
on the area. We have some areas where we have great FBI
counterpart agents that are there that work with us. And it
depends on, as it does with the BIA, the workload, where you
are at, what is going on, on the resources that are available.
So, I think they do really well in some areas, and it is no
different than the tribal law enforcement program or our
programs. Some areas we still struggle just because maybe we
don't have enough resources that are actually assigned to that
area, and we work on trying to coordinate our efforts to make
sure that one of us is responding and able to focus on those
types of cases.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you very much. Chairman, I yield, and
thank you for the time.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Representative Haaland.
I now recognize Ranking Member Cook.
Mr. Cook. Thank you very much. It is very, very frustrating
because this is a huge problem, more so for the members of the
audience and the tribes than me. But I don't know how to fix
this. I wish I had some grand solution to it. I think Congress
has to be more involved.
I was mulling over in this pea brain of mine about ways on
how we could get attention, and I almost asked the Committee to
take a look at what the military has done, the House Armed
Services Committee. They have what is called a combat readiness
evaluation, a unit readiness. Basically, it is a report card.
And when this first came in and I was in the military, I
hated it. I thought, how can they do this? This is micro-
managing. But it forced you to do certain things in terms of
whether money was being allocated in certain areas, reporting
efficiency, things like that, and how you would do this. The
only reason it was successful, it was a Federal program. It is
not like you are asking one state to do it, or a city, or what
have you.
So, if these statistics do not improve, I suggest that we
are going to have to have some type of evaluation system to see
where the shortfalls are, even if it is incumbent upon this
Committee or the Congress as a whole to do that. Because we
cannot continue with these tragic situations where the bubble
does not seem to be moving in terms of improvement. And I echo
some of the statements.
But I think there were a lot of things that came out today.
This has been a hearing which--it is depressing. It is
depressing for everybody in the audience. But it is a hearing
that has to be held because you are never going to make
corrections or you are never going to address the situation.
And, obviously, maybe the bottom line of this is, hey, this
is going to stay on the radar. We have to continue to find ways
to improve this because right now innocent people are dying,
missing, and our job here, even more so than you, we have to do
something about it.
So, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Ranking Member Cook.
Prior to closing, I do want to say this is our second
hearing, and I do appreciate the efforts that have occurred
thus far. But we want to see more beyond listening sessions. We
want to see actions. If there needs to be follow-up
legislation, we will be here to be supportive of legislation.
Obviously, we would rather see things move faster and
actually have a process and protocols instituted at the
Department levels. But this is something that this Subcommittee
is not going to let go. We cannot allow women, thousands of
women, to be disappearing a year. And it is certainly our trust
responsibility here in Congress to make sure we do something
about it. So, there will be follow up to this, and I hope to
have a successful conversation next time about how we have
improved the situation.
I thank our panelists, our expert witnesses, for their
insightful testimony, and Members for their questions. The
members of the Committee may have some additional questions for
the witnesses, and we will ask you to respond to those in
writing.
Under Committee Rule 3(o), members of the Committee must
submit witness questions within 3 business days following a
hearing, and the hearing record will be held open for 10
business days for these responses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]