They disappear from reservations, cities, and rural communities.
Some are found murdered. Many are never found at all.
And, for years, Native American families and activists have been raising the alarm and left searching for answers about their loved ones from a system that has failed to provide them.
A new federal watchdog audit zeroes in on some of the reasons behind that failure: the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ chronic understaffing, leading to a substantial backlog in its ability to solve cases involving missing and murdered Native Americans – most of whom are women.
“Missing and murdered indigenous people is not simply a data problem or a jurisdictional problem,” Trent Shores, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma and former chair of the Native American Issues Subcommittee at the Department of Justice, testified at a Congressional Hearing on missing and murdered Indigenous people on Tuesday. “It is a human tragedy that tests whether our institutions can fulfill one of the government’s most fundamental responsibilities: protecting our communities from crime and pursuing justice for victims.”
Who this impacts. Abigail Echo-Hawk, the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, testified at the congressional hearing about the grief felt by those left behind and the need to strengthen public safety in Native American communities.
“I get a lot of voicemails that crackle with pain as soon as I pick them up,” Echo-Hawk shared at the congressional hearing.
“Whispers of ‘Abigail, is this you? He killed my baby. Her bright eyes, her dark skin, and her Dakota eyes looking at me as his bloody fist brutally murdered her. Abigail, I don’t understand why his sentence was so light, and why is he back walking on our reservation?’ ”
Echo-Hawk said she tried her best to connect the loved one with resources and services. However, “As a direct result of the funding cuts that have been happening across the nation, when I got this phone call just a couple of months ago, there was a lack of resources and services. And I was directing her to something that didn’t exist anymore.”
Significance. The audit by the Department of Interior found that as of November 2024, the Missing and Murdered Unit had 83 open cases and 394 referrals for the unit to take on.
Of those 394 referrals, 284 filed between 2020 and 2023 are still awaiting review to see if the unit will investigate. The audit highlighted that the long case review times are mainly due to “inefficient intake procedures, absence of established timeframes for assessing referrals, excessive, and unmanageable workloads for existing agents.”
And amid the backlogs and snarls of red tape, loved ones of the missing have been waiting years for answers.
The Department of Interior reviewed the timeframe between 2021 and 2024 and conducted independent investigations and interviews with staff to understand the progress and efficacy of the unit.
The audit also reviewed 17 random missing persons cases. In eight of those, a lack of staffing in the victims’ support positions meant that families and loved ones didn’t receive adequate communication and support from the agency.
Overlooked angle. For decades, Native Americans have experienced disproportionately higher rates of violent crimes, including homicide. The majority of victims are Native women.
A 2024 report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that there were 10,248 missing Indigenous persons reports in that year. 5,614 of the missing victims were women, and most women reported missing were under the age of 18.
According to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, “56.1% [of Native American women] have experienced sexual violence, 55.5% have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner, and 48.8% have experienced stalking.”
The Missing and Murdered Unit of the Bureau of Indian Affairs was started in 2021 to address the crisis. However, its success has been slow and limited, with the fate of many missing Native Americans still unknown.
Power structure. The audit also revealed that 39% of the funds that were supposed to go to the Missing and Murdered Unit were redirected to other costs in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Those costs include upgrading vehicles.
Despite federal spending growing from $12 million to $17 million over the 2021 to 2024 time period, the Missing and Murdered Unit lacked necessary funding and staffing to find missing Native Americans.
Challenges reviewing and accepting cases were further exacerbated when the Trump administration cut government staff across all sectors, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs losing 11% of its staff and one-third of its regional officers.
Last month, the Trump administration made efforts to address the issue of missing person cases involving Native Americans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced a $25,000 minimum reward to those who share information on Native American missing person cases.
What experts say. “Where federal funds are provided to deliver federal law enforcement services, there should be accountability to determine whether those services are provided, whether investigations are timely, whether evidence is properly controlled, and whether deficiencies are corrected,” former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizner said at Tuesday’s congressional hearing.
“Broken systems and failed promises have created decades of resource gaps, distrust of programs, and investigative failures, finally resulting in a general acceptance of the MMIP phenomenon on the Navajo Nation. We can do better. We must do better. No longer should being Navajo mean that going missing, being murdered, or falling victim to exploitative crime is simply the risk of being Navajo and living on our land.”
