Native people are at disproportionate risk of experiencing violence, being murdered or going missing.
In 2020, Congress passed a law called the Not Invisible Act to try to stop this.
It was written by Deb Haaland, then a representative and now the first Indigenous secretary of the Interior Department. She promised the government would listen to Native people.
In a cavernous ballroom in an Albuquerque hotel, under amber crystal chandeliers, red skirts are draped over four chairs. They're a reminder of Native victims of violence and human trafficking
“I know, from my own experience, that nothing about this feels right,” said Elizabeth Reese, the White House senior policy advisor for Native affairs, who is from Nambé Pueblo.
“It's all wrong. And it feels wrong,” she said. “It's wrong that this happened. It's wrong, that systems failed to protect you or your loved ones. And it's wrong that now you need to talk about it as a part of fixing it.”
A commission of Native leaders, law enforcement and the relatives of the disappeared is here to discuss why this problem is so persistent. Commissioner Patricia Whitefoot's sister disappeared decades ago.
“There was a lack of any consistent and meaningful communication with myself and my family of my sister missing for that long, " said Whitefoot. “And it's difficult to say how angry you are about all of that.”
More than 80% of Nativepeople have experienced violence in their lifetime, significantly more than their white peers. In 2021, Native people made up 3.6% of a national missing persons register, four times the Native proportion of the U.S.
One of those people is Tiffany Reid, beloved little sister of Deiandra Reid, also from the Navajo Nation.
“She had a love for animals, especially little kittens, she was always adopting cats off the street, " said Reid.
And she wrote poetry.
“She did a lot of writing. She did a poetry slam contest in I want to say Missouri, the last place that she went just right before she went missing,” she said.
One day in 2004, when she was 16, she left to go to school in Shiprock
“And that was it. We never seen or heard from her since then.”
Deiandra Reid says she spent years trying to get help from tribal police and other agencies
“It's really hard for me to get in contact with anybody. And when I do, they're constantly changing officers,” she said. “So I've talked to maybe three different officers so far within the last two years. It's really frustrating to me.”
Indigenous members of Reid’s community continue to go missing.
“Sadly it's becoming more common.”
The problem is so hard to tackle in part because its historical roots are so deep.
Cheryl Yazzie says the missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives movement first began in the 1970’s in Canada. She is a member of the Navajo Nation who sits on the advisory board for the New Mexico Missing and Murdered Task Force.
“The movement was made there because there was a particular highway that a lot of our Indigenous women went missing on,” she said. “And the same here. Albuquerque and Gallup, in the entire United States, is the two top cities where a lot of our missing relatives are accounted for.”
“And so when you look at the timeline, from then to here, we're still being underrepresented,” said Yazzie. “We're still being set aside, we're still being pushed aside as far as national attention, as far as media attention as far as law enforcement. So really, if you look at it, the timeline just remains the same.”
Celina Montoya Garcia from the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women points to generations of Native people forcibly displaced from their lands or, later sent to boarding schools where they suffered neglect or worse.
“Like the trickling effects of all of that has also come down to our people who have learned violence, and then comes like, even within our own people is lateral violence, domestic violence, sexual assault from our own people.”
Other violence comes from outside, like camps where largely male workers live while working coal mines or oil wells on Native lands
“These camps are causing an increased rate in sex trafficking, sexual assault, domestic violence, the like, there's more like drugs, substance use happening,” she said.
The commission is hearing from Deiandra Reid and others with heartbreaking stories. But it's also hearing from tribal police officers about their budget issues and the FBI about how hard it is to recruit people to work in Indian country.
Commissioner Amber Kanazbah Crotty says the different viewpoints are vital.
“If we don't see this from a broad point of view, we will just continue to work in our own silos, and not understand the ripple effect in working with all of these different jurisdictions,” she said.
In the fall, it is due to make recommendations on how to improve coordination between governments, and law enforcement agencies in hopes of finally giving family members like Deiandra Reid a sense of resolution.
“I don't think I'll ever give up until I do find her or find out what happened to her,” said Reid. “I just want to bring her home one way or another, good or bad.”
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation and KUNM listeners.
