(Excerpt from PBS)

Nov 26, 2019 President Donald Trump signed an executive action on Nov. 26 to address concerns over missing Native American women. The order creates an interagency task force aimed at improving efforts to find out what has happened to Native Americans who have gone missing and prevent the murders of native women. The U.S. government also plans to distribute grants to improve safety in Native American communities. “We will deliver justice for the victims, closure for the families and safety to those in harm’s way,” Trump said. Native American leaders who attended the signing ceremony thanked Trump for taking action and emphasized how murders have affected their communities. “We cannot have this happening anymore,” said Melanie Benjamin, the chief executive of the Non-Removable Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.

Despite what anyone thinks about President Trump, the important thing here is how and what the various nations had to say.

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(Excerpt from U.S. Department of the Interior)

President Biden issues proclamation for missing and murdered relatives – Thursday, May 5, 2022

President Joe Biden issued a proclamation declaring May 5 as Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. “For generations, Indigenous persons, including American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians, have been forced to mourn a missing or murdered loved one without the answers and support they deserve,” the proclamation from the White House states. “On Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day, we remember these victims and their families, and commit to working with Tribal Nations and Native communities to achieve justice and healing.” “The Federal Government has an obligation to ensure that cases of missing or murdered persons are met with swift and effective action,” the proclamation continues. “My Administration is fully committed to investigating and resolving these cases through a coordinated law enforcement response, as well as intervention and prevention efforts. We are also dedicated to researching the underlying causes of this violence and to working with Native communities to address them.”

According to Biden, the Department of Justice is “working closely with Tribal Nations to develop regionally appropriate guidelines for these cases.” The apparent lack of progress in creating these guidelines had been raised in a bipartisan letter sent by key members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs earlier this week. “The Department of Justice has created a dedicated steering committee to oversee and coordinate this critical work, including an outreach services liaison for Federal criminal cases in Indian Country,” Biden states in the proclamation. The proclamation otherwise does not directly mention Savanna’s Act or the Not Invisible Act, both of which became law in October 2020, before Biden took office. Native women and their advocates have called on the federal government to implement the two laws in order to help address the crisis of missing and murdered people in Indian Country. But Biden touts his signing of the Violence Against Women Act. The new law recognizes the inherent authority of tribes to prosecute non-Indians for a broader set of crimes. It also recognizes the sovereignty of tribes in Alaska, who had been left out of the 2013 version of VAWA. “This important law expands special criminal jurisdiction of Tribal courts to cover non-Native perpetrators of sexual assault, child abuse, stalking, sex trafficking, and assaults on Tribal law enforcement officers on Tribal lands and supports the development of a pilot project to enhance access to safety for survivors in Alaska Native villages,” the proclamation states.

(Excerpt from NC Policy Watch)

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Monday, November 16, 2021, addressing violence against Indigenous communities.

“These efforts are a matter of dignity,” Biden said during the opening ceremony for the White House Tribal Nations Summit. “That’s the foundation of our nation-to-nation partnership.”

The executive order directs the departments of Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services to create a strategy that will improve the public safety and justice for Native Americans, as well as address the crisis of missing or murdered Indigenous peoples.

“I’m proud to sign it. It’s long overdue,” Biden said while signing the order on Monday. “We’re going to make some substantial changes in Indian Country, and it’s going to continue.”

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As of today, August 6, 2022, these are just more promises made but promises not kept but that isn’t anything new when it comes to the Native American nations. What is different though is that there was a time when the news would carry and report on stories like this, but now-a-days, they are all bought and paid for by political parties, and this is why it is imperative that people become more involved and contact the various medias demanding more coverage about this problem, and to use Facebook and Twitter to spread the word. WE ARE OUR BROTHER’S KEEPER!