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50 DttP 5 (2022)
Operation Lady Justice: Federal Government Resources on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP), Part 1 - Congressional Publications, Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Public Laws, and Task Forces and Initiatives, 2015-2022

handle is hein.journals/dttp50 and id is 26 raw text is: FEATURE Operation Lady Justice Federal Government Resources on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP), Part 1-Congressional Publications, Executive Orders, Proclamations, and Public Laws, and Task Forces and Initiatives, 2015-2022 Elizabeth Sanders Background Sadly, the victimization of Native Americans is not new. At a House hearing in 2019, Tamra Tami Nagle and Sarah Deer testified on the historical mistreatment of Native people, which has included abduction, assault, and murder. Both spoke of their hope that recent attention on the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous persons (MMIP) would bring needed change.1 The recent attention they mentioned began in the US government in 2015. While not focused on MMIP, a Senate hearing addressed the needs of victims of crime in Indian coun- try.2 This hearing highlighted the high rates of violent crime victimization, inadequacies of current criminal justice systems, and difficulties faced by Native Americans. In 2016, a Department of Justice report featured detailed statistics on the high rate of violent crime victimization among American Indian and Alaska Natives, particularly for women.3 This survey has since been referenced heavily, particularly due to the lack of other statistics available. That same year, the Sen- ate and House both introduced the first of several resolutions to mark May 5 as a day of awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls.4 Neither of these passed, but similar resolutions have been made in subsequent Congresses, includ- ing annual resolutions that have passed in the Senate. In 2017, a Senate hearing discussed three bills introduced about MMIP,5 the most important of which was S. 1942, Savan- na's Act. Savanna's Act, named for murder and fetal abduction victim Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, would be reintroduced until its passage in 2020.6 From 2018 to 2019, three additional congressional hearings directly on MMIP were held.7 Each of these hearings featured testimony from government officials and Native persons, and they revealed several areas contrib- uting to the crisis, such as jurisdictional and geographic chal- lenges, and lack of needed resources and data. In 2019, President Trump issued Executive Order 13898 that established the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaskan Natives, also known as Opera- tion Lady Justice.' The task force, which sought to address the MMIP crisis, included members from the Departments of Jus- tice, Interior, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development. The task force sunset in 2021. In 2020, President Trump issued the first presidential proclamation on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, which recognized May 5 as a day of awareness. Unlike the earlier Congressional resolutions, this proclamation featured additional detail about the MMIP crisis and actions taken to address it. Savanna's Act and the Not Invisible Act of 2019 also passed in 2020.10Among other actions, the Not Invis- ible Act of 2019 established a joint commission between the Departments of Interior and Justice. In 2021, President Biden issued a presidential proclama- tion on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. He also issued Executive Order 14053, Improving Public Safety and Criminal Justice for Native Americans and Addressing the Crisis ofMissing or Murdered Indigenous People. This exec- utive order seeks to address the underlying causes of the MMIP crisis and to foster long-term improvement to public safety for Native Americans. As a result of these combined efforts between 2015 and the present, several government resources related to the MMIP cri- sis exist. A recent CRS report provides an excellent overview and introduction to the topic.'3 However, navigating the topic can still be challenging. For example, different sources use different labels for the topic, and missing and murdered and miss- ing or murdered are often used interchangeably. Indigenous people or Indigenous persons are more recent and inclusive than Indigenous women or Indigenous women and girls. DttP: Documents to the People Summer 2022 5

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