Eighteen California Tribes Awarded Almost $20M – Addressing MMIW Crisis

Eighteen California tribes will receive almost $20 million in grants to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person crisis in the state.

On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the grant award for funding to help investigations, develop culturally based prevention strategies, improve responses to human trafficking, supply culturally appropriate support services to families, and improve cooperation and communication on jurisdictional issues with local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement.

The Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians will use the grant to establish a housing project to provide a “safe and culturally sensitive environment for the tribe’s most vulnerable members,” according to the governor’s news release.

The Pechanga Band of Indians is planning to hire a trained law enforcement investigator, a human trafficking coordinator, and a “master’s-level” social worker with a background in commercial sexual exploitation. This social worker will respond to youth runaways, missing person incidents, and potential human trafficking victims.

The Pit River Tribe will be using the funds to develop culturally-based support and resources for family members with missing loved ones with their tribal victim witness department.

California currently has the fifth most cases in the country, with more than 150 documented Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person cases in California, according to the Sovereign Bodies Institute. This issue reflects disproportionate rates of violence against Native people, where 84% of Native women and 82% of Native men will experience violence in their lifetime, according to the news release.

In 2016, the Urban Indian Health Institute The states with the highest number of cases are

as follows: New Mexico (78), Washington (71),

Arizona (54), Alaska (52), Montana (41), California

(40), Nebraska (33), Utah (24), Minnesota (20), and

Oklahoma (18).

Newer data released in 2021 from the Data Subcommittee for New Mexico’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Task Force say the available data shows the grim reality of a system with repeated failures.

According to the task force:

New Mexico has the highest rate of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women cases in the country.

Native American women have the highest rate of death by homicide among all racial groups in New Mexico.

Native American women make up 16% of all unsolved missing persons cases between 2014 and 2019.

Two cities, Albuquerque and Gallup, are in the top 10 in the United States for MMIW cases.

Between 2014 and 2019, Albuquerque reported 660 cases of missing Native Americans. 287 of those cases involve women.

In Gallup, during the same time-period, women accounted for 53% of the 675 missing-persons cases involving Native Americans.

In the Four Corners, Farmington reports 66% of its missing-persons cases involve Indigenous women.

Statewide, 506 MMIW cases are active in New Mexico. More than half, 280, are murder cases. The average age of the victims is 29.

About 79.5% of criminal investigations opened by the FBI were referred to prosecution, and 21 percent of those cases were closed because they did not meet prosecution guidelines, the U.S. Department of Justice Indian Country Investigations and Prosecutions Report noted in 2017. The cases were thrown out due to lack of evidence that a crime was committed and because the deaths being investigated were the result of an “accident, suicide, or natural causes.”

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person cases are seven times less likely to be solved than any other group, the news release stated. In particular, Native women are more than ten times more likely to be victims of murder compared to the national average.

Gov. Newsom said in a statement, “Too many Native people, many of them women and girls, are missing with no answer,” “Behind each Missing and Murdered Indigenous Person case is a family and community grieving a loved one.”

The 2024-2025 state budget will give an additional $13.25 million for these grants.