Assembly Select Committee on Select Committee on Native American Affairs

All right, we're about ready to get started. Some of the Members, there's other committees that are going on, so you'll see Members come in and out during the hearing. But we do want to start this meeting of the Native American Select Committee meeting today. We're here to talk about issues and combat the work with the crisis of missing emergencies people. We have panels assembled. We actually have a panel, one that would be supporting tribes in a public law 280 state.

The second panel deals with tribal leaders concerns on MMIP, and the third panel deals with the California State efforts and advocacy work on the MMIP missing and murdered Indigenous persons in the State of California. At this time, we want to do a land acknowledgement within our opening statement and acknowledge the traditional territories that were in of the Miwa, Nissanan and Paduan people from this area. I just want to welcome everybody to our Native American Select Committee hearing on missing and murdered Indigenous people.

I want to thank my colleagues for joining us here today and at the press conference, as well as our participating tribal leaders, community partners and advocates. Last year at a similar hearing, the Yurok tribe had declared a State of emergency, which is still in effect this year. Round Valley Indian tribes, both of which are here with us today, also declared a State of Emergency just two weeks ago. This is not the evidence of improvement in progress in the State of California.

In fact, it's going the other way as California now is in the top five of all the states in the nation on not bringing resolve to missing and murdered Indigenous people, Indigenous women in the State of California. More tribes do not have to endure this fate before the proper preventive measures are put into place and the gaps bridged. Today we will hear from tribal leaders, community leaders and advocates who continue to live this as their reality. As we all know, representation is important.

So the voice that we bring forward to be able to have these hearings is a voice that's elevating the tribal people's voices throughout the State of California. And we will continue to work on these issues in the state Legislature with colleagues moving forward.

For example, for the first time in California history, the Capitol Dome will be lit red starting tonight through Friday, May 5, to commemorate and to bring awareness to the unsolved missing and murdered Indigenous person cases that has placed California in the top five of all states. It's time that we come together with allies and friends to bring awareness to the situation that's been plaguing California Indian people. This effort is continuing to bring awareness to the missing and murdered Indigenous people epidemic right here in California.

Last year. About this time, we discussed this very issue and tribal recommendations out of the different hearings that we had led to the implementation of feather alert that came straight from a hearing just like this that then moved through the Legislature and got signed by the Governor of the State of California. AB 1314 now is a tool that law enforcement can use on when abduction takes place. So it's a preventive measure to make sure we're bringing people back home safe and sound.

Today, we continue to work on bills AB 44 that will work with law enforcement to allow tribal governments to be able to have access to the KLET's information. It's about time that we share that information so we truly know who's coming on to Indian lands in the State of California. And AB 273, that deals with notification to parents when someone goes missing from foster care. That way people are being notified, and that includes Native American families to be notified when someone goes missing.

AB 1314 created a public notification system when a Native American person is missing and moves forward for implementation through the feather alert. Native American children enter the child welfare system at a rate that is 2.7 times, almost three times more than their representation in the population. In 2019, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported that 85% of all missing Indigenous children over a 10 year period of time were endangered.

runaways, a disproportionate number, are in foster care, and it makes them even more vulnerable to exploitation and violence. Many tribal foster youths have parents who are missing or murdered and who were also foster youth themselves. We must end this spiral of intergenerational trauma and violence. Like Feather Alert AB 1314, it is a resource available to law enforcement agencies investigating the suspicious or unexplainable disappearance of Indigenous women or Indigenous persons from Indian reservations and tribal communities.

Timely notification is critical when persons, no matter the age, are missing. Even though we may have increased awareness and are making progress through education, we still have a long way to go as a State of California. When we first started having hearings in the Legislature in 2019, California was number seven on the list of all states in the nation. Today, California is now in the top five. We're going in the wrong direction.

And so these hearings very much is a calling to the Legislature, the state, to be able to bring resources. So, we start to see us now bringing resolve to this issue, an alliance, and coming together to tackle these issues. My colleagues that are here with me today show their support for the California Native American Legislative Caucus and for the Select Committee on Native American Affairs. I will open up now to see if any Members would like to say any words.

Assembly Member Rodriguez, thank you very much, Chairman.

I really want to thank you for all the hard work you've done in and around this area and look forward to a very robust discussion and how we move forward and continuing to solve these issues facing our people. So thank you once again for bringing us together on this.

Thanks. Thank you so much. Senator Ting

Thank you, Mr. Chair, again. Also, just want to echo Mr. Rodriguez's comments and just thank you for raising this issue. I know it's an issue that doesn't always get the publicity it deserves, but definitely is a very serious issue when we have people who go missing, women who go missing under the threat of violence is very, very concerning. Really appreciate you bringing this to the forefront. So thank you.

Thank you, some of the Members of board.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Really appreciate this. And also want to appreciate all the Members of the panel. I looked at the panel today, very impressive group of people and very interested in learning more about this really important topic.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we have our panelists, and our first panel will be around the topic of supporting tribes in a public law 2-80 state. We have on the panel we have Legal Director for California Legal Services Dorothy Alder, who will be speaking. We also have Yurok Tribal Chief Judge Abby joining us by virtual testimony. So, we'll test the technology.

And we have Yurok Tribal Lieutenant Jacob Morris and Yurok Tribal Chairman Joe James and Justice Policy Lead for Yurok, Judge Devon Lomayesva, a Member of the Iipay Nation Senate Isabel. And as we start to move forward, a little background on the presenters. Dorothy Alther, as a Member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is active in ensuring CILS is involved in state and federal issues impacting tribes, tribal communities.

This includes providing comments on behalf of tribal clients to pending state and federal rules or legislation, partnering with others and tribal coalitions to advance legislation or regulation. Alder has been a trainer on Public Law 280, the Indian Child Welfare Act, Housing law and tribal law enforcement, building tribal courts and tribal law in order. At this time, we like to turn the podium over to Director author.

Thank you. Good morning. It's an honor to be here and I appreciate this opportunity. When I was getting ready to come up here from San Diego to do this presentation, my daughter asked me, what are you talking about, Mom? And I said, public law 280. And she rolled her eyes and said, don't over explain it. Okay.

Public law 280 can be very complicated, but I need to, I think, go back a little bit in order to really give the full history of what public law 280 did in the State of California. Prior to 1953, the State of California had virtually little to no jurisdiction in Indian country. Okay? The only time the state would be involved in any type of prosecution would be where both of the individual defendant and victim were non Indians. All right? So the state really had no role.

The Federal Government and the tribes were responsible for all of the law enforcement in Indian country prior to 1953. And that's really the State of jurisdiction in non-PL 280 states. Again, the states usually have very little to no jurisdiction. Well, after Public Law 280 was passed in 1953, the Federal Government basically stepped out of Indian country and repealed the application of two of the primary major federal criminal statutes that are used, the Major Crimes act and the Indian Country Crimes Act.

So, they were stepping out of Indian country and what they did is they granted that jurisdiction concurrently with the state and the tribes. So, what we have today is that the State of California, the law enforcement, does have the jurisdiction to come onto the reservation and basically arrest and prosecute individuals, regardless if they're Native American or not Native American in Indian country. Now I really want to stress, though, that Public Law 280 didn't take any jurisdiction away from the tribes. All right?

The tribes have always maintained their concurrent jurisdiction. And there's two pieces of PL 280, all right? There's civil and there's criminal. This is where it gets confusing. And for purposes of today, this presentation usually takes me 3 hours. So I'm going to break it down to 12 minutes, okay? We're going to talk about criminal jurisdiction. And actually that's kind of the easier part of PL 280, okay? Because the state does have criminal concurrent jurisdiction on the reservation.

Now, although the tribes have this concurrent jurisdiction, it has very slowly evolved. I've done this for going on over 33 years at CILs, and during that time I have seen virtually no tribal courts, no tribal law enforcement to now where we have vibrant tribal courts and outstanding tribal police departments. So it has been a very slow evolution. And you may ask why.

And so I couldn't do this presentation without putting some blame on the Bureau of Indian affairs, which is that the Bureau of Indian affairs took a position that the tribes had no criminal jurisdiction.

So, it created a real State of confusion and in sometimes sort of a less than favorable relationship. But we now, today, although tribes are advancing courts and tribal law enforcement, I do have to say that the Federal Government does not Fund tribal courts or tribal law enforcement in the State of California because we are under public Law 280. I've litigated that, and unfortunately, I lost. But this is another aspect of why tribes have really struggled to establish their own courts and their own law enforcement.

So that's public Law 280. When it comes to criminal jurisdiction, the state and the tribe has concurrent jurisdiction. The state has generally on just about most of the reservations in the state. They are the primary law enforcement. Most tribes in California do not have law enforcement. They rely on the sheriff. Now, I do want to point out that like many minority communities, the tribal community is also very vulnerable to acts of police brutality and excessive use of force, sometimes resulting in death.

Native Americans, like I said, are not immune from this. And for tribal people, there's a huge mistrust when sheriff's deputies come onto that reservation. And a lot of times crime is underreported. Why bother? The sheriff either won't come at all or by the time they get there, the crime is over and the perpetrator is gone.

And it's really under those circumstances that I have worked with tribes who said, if we want law enforcement, we want safety and protection for our community, we're going to have to do it ourselves. We cannot just rely on the sheriff. And I'm not dissing the sheriff. I don't know if there's anyone in the room, but a lot of these tribes are in very remote rural areas. They don't have the resources. I'm down in San Diego trying to get up to some of these reservations.

It's very, very difficult. So, lack of resources, sometimes just lack of will. But a lot of crimes happening on reservations that go unreported and unresolved, and tribes have stepped up and they have said, we're going to have to do this on our own. We have concurrent criminal jurisdiction. We can do this. So, I just really want to stress that tribes have really.

I think in my experience in this day and age, I can look around this room at the tribal leaders and their tribes do have tribal law enforcement and functioning courts, and they do bring a lot of accountability to those who come onto the reservation and commit crimes. I was recently reading national statistics that show that Native Americans are killed by police at a higher rate, about 2.9 annual average deaths per 1 million population, than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States.

And I think that that sometimes is very shocking to people because you don't necessarily see those incidents of state police killing Native Americans. My experience with the sheriff's departments is that their presence on the reservation vacillates from nonexistent to overzealous. And I really don't. Like I said, I work with tribal law enforcement. I work with every tribal Police Department in this state. There are great county sheriffs who work really well with tribal law enforcement.

But I also got to add, there are a lot of counties where the sheriff does not share a good relationship with the tribe or tribal law enforcement. One of the things that, in my work with tribal law enforcement, which I always find amusing, given my background, but anyway, I work a lot with tribal law enforcement. And what I have learned is that with all of the police reform, all of what I'm hearing about, we need to have more accountability.

Tribal law enforcement, in my opinion, is the gold standard. All right, if you want to define community policing, you're talking about tribal law enforcement. These are people who know their community. Many of them live in their community. They engage and interact with their community members. They can deescalate a very serious situation where if a sheriff's deputy were called to that same incidence, something terrible could happen. And I sometimes wonder about the concern about accountability.

I can tell you that in my experience, again, is that no tribal officer that screws up does something that isn't acceptable. They go before the whole tribe. I mean, accountability is something every tribal law enforcement knows and understands. They're responsive to that community, and they'll be fired. I've seen that happen. We had initially introduced a bill, AB 44, and under its original version, what we were attempting to try and do is assist our tribal law enforcement in enforcing state law on the reservation.

Now, if you remember when I was talking about PL 280 and how it operates when it comes to Non-Indians, is that the Supreme Court of the United States said that tribes cannot try or punish a non-Indian. There's a few exceptions now coming out around domestic violence. But what that means is that our tribal law enforcement officers, when they encounter a non-Indian on their reservation committing a crime, they have to stand back. Okay. They can stop them.

Well, I'll let tribal law enforcement talk about what their limited authority is, but they have to wait for that sheriff to come and take custody of that individuals. So one of the things that we wanted to help our law enforcement is the ability to enforce state laws on the reservation and not create all kinds of new police officers, basically just giving them one or two more tools. And I'll tell you, I sat through the fentanyl hearing that was up here last month.

Fentanyl is a huge issue in Indian country, and a lot of times, tribal law enforcement knows who's bringing it in, where it's being possessed and distributed. But if they're non-Indian, our tribal law enforcement's hands are tied. Until we can bring that sheriff in, I would just like to end, and I'll be available for questions. Is just that tribal law enforcement, like I said to me, is what police reform is about.

It is about having officers in that community that know that community that works and lives in that community and are accountable to that community. And I believe that the more tools that we can give them to fight fentanyl, to do an investigation of MMIP and not have to rely on the sheriff or wait for the sheriff, I think we're creating safer communities. And with that, I'll close, and I will answer any questions.

Thank you. We'll hold questions till the end of the panel. Our next speaker, we're going to test our technology is Yurok Tribal Chief Judge Abby, joining us by virtual testimony. She's an enrolled Yurok Tribal Member. She holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of New Mexico School of Law and was the first California tribal woman to be admitted to the State Bar of California. She was a state judicial officer for San Francisco Superior Court over 17 years, assigned to the Unified Family courts.

She has been a Yurok Tribal court judge since 1997 and was appointed Chief Tribal Court judge in 2007, a position she held in conjunction with her Superior Court assignment until 2015, working dual, working for the tribal community as well as the State of California. Judge Abby.

Thank you very much. I appreciate you letting me do this virtually and skewing a Koi to the Assembly Members that are present. And the first thing I want to say to the other panel Members is before I get accused of trying to steal Devon. She actually has not left her judicial position in the south, although I am not above trying to tempt her to do that. She is the Chief Judge of the intravel Court of Southern California.

So all you people who are thinking of writing me nasty notes, stand down. And the second thing I want to say is I appreciate everything that Dorothy said. And what I think people don't quite get a handle on is that this act of Public Law 280 created a terrible constraint, not just on the tribes, but on the State also.

Because what happened in this period of time and in only six states did this happen, the state was given a tremendous amount of jurisdiction and no financial ability to extend their services. Now, you all know what kind of a mess and confusion that can cause, and that's exactly what's happened here. And when we look at our police, I want to just tell you just for a moment what our word for policeman was and what it translates to in English is protector.

And that's what that goal was, and that's what their process was in our villages was to protect. Our relationship was much different with our police force. And they have come back in, in terms of the Yurok Police Department to fulfill that historical role. They are Members of the community. They walk in the community, they work with us, and they look at the problems that are out there, and they try to address those problems. That's what the council has insisted on.

That is what our chief of police has insisted on, and that changes everything. And we can become a guiding light for other police agencies. As you turn and look at police departments across the country, everybody's looking at community policing. We know about that and we know how to do it, and we will create systems that allow for that. In this instance, it's terrifically important that we work together. When you have limited resources, you don't want to isolate each other.

You want to team up, because that is the best way to do, and. Lt will talk about it. Actually, I thought that Lieutenant Jacob's first name was Lt. For the longest time. He actually does have another first name. But he will tell you about all of the teaming up that we have done with our local law enforcement. And because of that, we're increasing our ability to protect, and that's what we want to do. We look at that figure of fifths in the nation with horror.

That is no place you ever, ever want to be. And particularly when you realize that it's probably underreported. That's a disaster and much of what that comes from, frankly, is domestic violence and situations that allow for domestic violence. And part of what public Law 280 created was a gap in protection for victims. And we are trying to fulfill that gap. And like we do as protectors. Our system has created the only state certified program for battery intervention that is very successful.

That is how we problem solve. We solve both sides of the problem. We don't go just, okay, we're going to be enforcing this and that we go, how are we going to solve this problem? It is important to us to solve the problem because when people go missing, we look backwards and we say, zero, look, look at all the historical trauma that's happened to California every time someone goes missing in this state.

That is tomorrow's historical trauma because that impacts that family, that village, that dance family, that tribe. And the horror of not knowing what happened to some Member of your family is indescribable, frankly. And I've seen it time after time after time. And that's what we're trying to look at here is how are we going to stop that? And the way to stop that for us is to defang Public Law 280 and to fill in the gaps that public Law 280 left.

And also I think we're going to have to turn to the Federal Government and say, nice try, but no banana here. We're done with this. You have to take up some of the slack and you have to help us solve some of the problems that you frankly created here. We are willing to do the hard work to address the issues and we're willing to partner with local law enforcement and to work with them and to come back out and say, look, we realize we have issues.

We want to fix those issues, both sides of the issues, like I said about domestic violence, and we will do that with your support. And that's what we're looking at. We're looking at being protectors and as we protect because now before, even when public Law 280 was passed, we could say, okay, well, we're separate communities now. We're partner communities. We move forward together on many, many initiatives and this has to be one of them.

People are not going to be able to isolate and go, okay, I can save myself and too bad for the rest of you. That's not how this world operates anymore because each thing we do now impacts everyone. And that's what we're looking at. And that's why we're looking at these solutions.

When we ask for help from the state Legislature, what we're trying to do is team up and say we are partners and we're trying to create a better world for the entire community, not just for our community. When we help our community, we help all the communities. And that's what we're doing and we're creating a model and we will hold up our end of the responsibility in terms of teaming and working with people. We understand that and we support that as a concept.

And that's how we always operated before all of the laws. And this came and said, this is how you're going to do it. You're isolated. You're on a reservation. We realize the responsibility to place and to each other. That's core to who we are and that's what we will do.

And that's what we're asking for help from is for you to look at Public Law 280 and address the gaps that have been created in our community and our partner communities because this has created a horribly unfair burden on a lot of people. And that hurt is going to spread out and continue. And we will help. We will help teach what it means to be protectors, what it means to be a partner in law enforcement. This is what we do.

We partner with our courts and we partner with our law enforcement. You will see huge efforts made in that regard. And we want to continue to do that and to be responsible in community for that. And we have to end the murdered and missing issues that face this state and face, frankly, the entire country where people are just disappearing at a horrible rate. And that's not okay. And it's something that we can address if we form a prevention team. And that's what we're trying to do.

And we need a safety net. We will create that safety net. We have the will and we want to join with our local partners who I also believe have the will. Yes, sometimes we have squabbles, but it's like saying you never have an argument with your sister or something. Nobody would believe you trust me because you do sometimes. But those are resolvable because we have the same end result. And with that, then I'll yield the floor to Lt. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Judge Abbey, for being part of this panel and for your service to Indian country over the years and still bringing awareness on public Law 280 and the issues and the team approach here in the State of California to tribal communities in the State of California. Thank you so much. Our next speaker will be Europe Tribal Lieutenant Jacob Morris. In 2004, Lieutenant Morris began his law enforcement career with a Humboldt County Sheriff's Office.

For 13 years, he worked the most rural communities of southern Humboldt. Working in these remote environments gave him a unique insight into public safety needs of some of California's most rural communities. In 2019, Lieutenant Morris joined the Yurok Tribal Police Department.

Lieutenant, thank you. I've been asked to be on the panel this morning to provide for you guys a boots on the ground perspective on working as a tribal Police Department in a Public Law 280 state. Dorothy and Judge Abby provided you a pretty good background on the history of Public Law 280 and some of its effects. From a tribal police perspective working today, the most significant challenge that we face in protecting the communities is a lack of state law enforcement authority.

Dorothy laid out some of the jurisdictional issues created by PL 280, and while the Federal Government has affirmed the right of tribes to create their own laws, courts, and police for their citizens, and even to detain nontribal Members in certain matters of public safety, the State of California does not allow tribes to grant state peace officer status to its officers, which leaves significant concerns for public safety in native communities.

This forces tribes to seek band aid solutions to policing, such as special law enforcement commissions with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Memorandums of understanding with sheriff's office and DA's offices, or to operate under only their tribal authority. Some of the issues created with these various solutions having a special law enforcement commission with the BIA is one of the most common solutions that tribes seek to have some authority.

The unfortunate reality is the State of California also does not recognize federal law enforcement officers as state peace officers and limits their authority to a very narrow scope of the law under Penal Code section 830.8. The next option that I'd like to talk about is a deputation MOU with the county sheriff. That is what we use at the Yurok tribe. We've been able to use it very successfully, but it's not without issues.

Essentially, the MOU, after completing a field training program, my officers have level one Reserve deputy sheriff status, which makes them state peace officers. But having an MOU with the sheriff requires the tribe to be on good terms with the sheriff. Dorothy talked about that earlier. Sometimes those relationships are contentious. There's also the chance that with administrative changes at either Department, the MOU could be subject to change at any time. You also have I talked about my officer's field training with the sheriff's office.

That program, the minimum field training program for a California peace officer is laid out by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Trainings is 400 hours, 10 weeks. Most agencies provide substantially more hours of field training. That is a long time for a tribal police officer to be removed from their Department for training, and it creates a disconnect with the Department as well as the opportunity for those sheriff's offices. Most California agencies right now are understaffed and recruiting hard.

And it gives them ample opportunity to lure tribal officers away with incentives that we cannot provide. A few Southern California agencies have done good work having a direct filing agreement with the District Attorney's office. This allows qualified tribal officers to file reports directly with the DA's Office for State Crimes committed on the reservation. But it also would require the consent of the sheriff to make custodial arrests.

So you almost have to have two MOUs, or you're able to file cases, but not make custodial arrests when needed. There are a lot of tribes still operating with just their tribal authority. The tribe has concurrent jurisdiction. The problem there is you end up with limited criminal authority over non Indians and no arrest authority over tribal Members unless that tribe has its own criminal code and has a jail. That's resources that a lot of tribes simply do not have, it requires.

I talked about the Federal Government affirming the tribe's right to detain nontribal Members in matters of public safety. So, you have tribal officers out there, they see an offense, they detain. Now what? Now we wait. We get a hold of the sheriff's office. We say, hey, we have a person detained for this criminal code violation. If there is a deputy sheriff available, they will send one.

I can only speak to the relationships that I have with our two sheriff's offices, but the closest corner of the Yurok reservation to where I can expect a deputy to respond from is about 30 minutes in Del Norte County and 45 minutes in Humboldt County. And that's with full staffing levels for those sheriff's departments. Night shift in a far corner of the Yurok Drive Reservation, we may be waiting over 2 hours. That's an unreasonable detention, in my opinion, to put a suspect of a crime through.

Another thing I've seen in my time in local law enforcement in Humboldt County is I have seen friends of mine who have worked for tribal agencies when they weren't in a place where they had a working deputation agreement and did not have those powers of arrest.

I have seen people leave their tribal agency to go to work for the sheriff's office because they felt like they were going to be better able to serve their community, because they were so uncertain about their authority that it gave them identity issues in their profession. And that is an unreasonable problem to have as a police officer. That's not why you put a uniform on the tribes.

Not having state authority to make arrests and investigate criminal matters on reservations creates excessive response times in rural areas, as I've already mentioned, and unnecessary gaps in public safety. Judge Abbey touched on the role of tribal police going back to the role of the village protector. We very much see our role, and I'm speaking primarily for my agency, but also conversations I've had with other tribal law enforcement leaders. As guardians of the community, we're trying to fill that void left by PL 280.

There's a historic mistrust with law enforcement and native communities. I don't feel like I need to give you guys a history lesson, but there are substantial reasons for that historic mistrust. We also experience high rates of intergenerational trauma in native communities. These issues are further complicated by being policed by outside agencies that don't understand a lot of these issues. Going back to 1829, Sir Robert Peele presented us with some core ideals and principles of policing, one of which is to gain the trust of the community.

You should hire officers who represent and understand that community.

I can't speak for every tribal agency in the state, but I can tell you at the Yurok Tribal Police Department, that means hiring officers who believe in a trauma informed approach to criminal justice, who believe in a collaborative, crisis intervention team approach to assisting our most vulnerable citizens, who are invested in a community oriented policing model to integrate into the community and reduce negative interactions with law enforcement, and who are willing to bridge the gap between the tribal community and other agencies.

Those are primary selection factors. For every officer that we hire. There are folks who just aren't a good fit in a rural community or specifically a tribal community, and we won't hire them no matter what their qualifications are. It is my experience that tribal officers, even myself and other nontribal Members, are better received by the community than outside agencies. When we put this uniform on, we wear this patch. Skin color doesn't seem to matter.

The community has an ownership of its Police Department, and they expect more from us. We get more reporting, better cooperation than our partner agencies do when they have to come onto the reservation. The current status of tribal police officers not having state powers has a negative effect on the victims of crime and on missing persons. The lack of trust between native communities and law enforcement leads to the underreporting of crime and a lack of cooperation when crime is reported. That goes for missing persons as well.

We currently have no access to the California Law Enforcement Telecommunication System, which is the primary mechanism with which state agencies share information regarding law enforcement. That means we misinformation when a teletype goes out about a wanted person. We don't get it. It's not coming to my office. I have to rely on my partnership with other agencies to share that information with us.

Officers are unable to use klutz to get real time information in the field, which means they miss out on identifying when a person has warrants or is in violation of their probation or parole and prevents us from possibly preventing a crime from occurring. Currently, tribal court orders are entered into the National Criminal Information center via the Tribal Access Program. That's fantastic. But boots on the ground perspective, what I call the 02:00 a.m. clause.

NCIC requires an officer to know first and last name, middle initial, and date of birth to get a hit. In that system, Klutz requires first and last name. So when a victim seeks a restraining order from tribal court and they report a violation if they don't have that paperwork in their hand, or isn't perhaps a spouse in a DV issue where they know all of that information, sometimes we're not finding that information in the field.

That goes both for us and that also goes for our partner agencies, which results in more contention between the tribe and our partner agencies. Because there's already a history of nontribal law enforcement refusing or being reluctant to enforce tribal court orders, sometimes it's simply an issue of they didn't have enough information to find the hit. In NCIC, we are unable to enter a missing person into MUPs, which is within klutz. That's the missing and unidentified person system. Because we can't make an entry into MUPs.

The new Feather Alert program, which is fantastic, we're having to refer the reporting party of a missing person to a partner agency that has the authority to make that entry. And then we're relying on them to have to request a feather alert if we think the criteria is met. Who better knows the risk factors of tribal persons than their own Tribal Police Department? I think no one. We have constant workings with our social services Department. We know who the foster kids are.

We know our kids that are in and out of juvenile hall and are at significant risk. We talked about the mistrust earlier. That mistrust, if that mistrust leads to a delayed reporting of a missing person and potentially a lack of cooperation with the investigating agency, we are doing these people a miservice. I think that that is largely a significant factor contributing to the MMIP crisis that we face today.

You've heard briefly about AB 44 as a solution to some of these problems, AB 44, as originally drafted, would grant state peace officer status to tribal police agencies that meet the minimum standards as set by the Legislature, thus allowing tribes to invest in police departments that reflect their values, reduce reliance on outside agencies, reduce response time to calls for service, increase community trust, all of which I believe will lead to an increase in reporting, an increase in cooperation with investigations, and a reduction in crime and more positive outcomes in missing person cases.

AB 44 would also grant tribal police and tribal courts access to KLEts, ensuring tribal officers are getting information in real time and can enter missing persons into MUPs without undue delay. Being the entering agency of the missing person report will then allow us, the officers who have the most information about risk factors, to reach out to CHP to initiate a feather alert. Tribal court orders being entered into Klutz will make it easier for officers to get hits in the field and increase positive outcomes for victims.

In conclusion, I want to offer to this Legislature that supporting AB 44 as originally drafted is an opportunity to partner with tribes in addressing these issues and increase public safety in California. And I want to thank Assembly Member Ramos for arranging this hearing and continuing to author legislation which seeks to increase public safety in tribal communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Lieutenant Morris, for that. I do want to recognize that we had Juan Carrio, Assembly Member Juan Carrillo join us, Assembly Member Eduardo Garcia, and Assembly Member Reggie Jones. Sawyer also joined, and there's committees going on, so Members will be coming in and out. But getting this message out very much is important to the state Legislature. Our next speaker is Europe Tribal Chairman Joe James. Chairman Joe James is from the traditional village of Shrigon of the Klamath River in Northern California.

Chairman James was elected Chairman in 2018 and reelected to a second term in 2021, and he is leading the charge of Europe confronting the MMIP crisis. He is thankful for all of the grassroots tribal advocacy efforts to improve indigenous lives. He hopes to build a model that all tribes can use to fend off this crisis of MMIP.

Chairmen thank you, Samuel Ramos, Ayekwi Neck now Joseph James, Chairman of the Yurok Tribe as the Chairman of the Yurok Tribe, I'm grateful to have this opportunity to have today and address the public safety issues, concerns and solutions on behalf of the Iraq tribe as I have my testimony in front of me and listen to the testimony Public Lot 280 is nothing new. It's been here nearly 70 years without the consultation of tribes.

Let that thinking go in regarding trauma boarding schools, getting rid of our language, getting rid of our identity. Fast forward to here. Today, 70 years later, why would they not want us being able to arrest to protect the welfare and safety of our people? I have the approach as a tribal Chairman with our judge and our law enforcement as a model to protect the safety and welfare of our people, but also bring them together through our court system, through wellness, through village, all through our tribe.

It's a village mindset. When we work together, we talk about balance and bringing people together and balance as one. You mentioned we're going in the wrong direction. We have, we started, we're fifth the highest caseloads at MMA United States. There are six states in Public Law 280 and we're fifth in MMIP. We have done great work. We have a lot of great work yet to go. Today you're hearing about Public Law 280, how it impacts us, how it restricts us regarding resources, tools.

Public Law 280 is nothing new to Indian country. As judge mentioned, it's a federal law. Things that we have to go back, but it's in front of us now within the state with our legislators to help us and to partner.

It. Because of Public Law 280 and problems with state law, we were without tools and resources we need in remote and rural areas. We have sponsored legislation, AB 44 to resolve some of these issues and need your support to pass this Bill as rigidly stated within AB 44. When you look at AB 44, I think of back 70 years from now regarding Public Law 280. It's a system that was passed in the law but not built for us. And again, AB 44 has been introduced.

We strongly support it. As originally written. It is a law that's there going to help in protecting the safety welfare of our people. It's not a law to go arrest people tomorrow, the next day. It's there to protect us. It's a system that has input with tribes throughout California that's driven by tribes. And I urge the legislators to support AB 40 as originally written. Right now, Native Americans have the highest rates of violent victimization for both males and females of any race.

We as Yuroks and our surround tribal cities are facing fentanyl, which is hitting our native communities in Northern California at a higher rate than earlier race. We have MMIP, we have crimes. Right now, we are losing people. Our people are being killed. We've declared a State of emergency again with our law enforcement, with our sheriff, with our state. It's what we have in front of us.

Public law 280 is a federal law, but it's in front of us now to deal with it and work with it. As our judge mentioned, our law enforcement mentioned. There's many hurdles and obstacles, lack of resources. But we're here to partner. We're here to work together, here to come together as a village. We have put in millions of dollars into our police and court systems. We applied for grants and continue to do the hard work.

We are asking more than we as tribes with two eight, ask them for nothing more than giving us the authority to engage with and arrest any person that is pushing fentanyl on the reservation, resulting in deaths, troublers at a higher rate than the other communities and prisons who are abusing kidnapping, killing Native women and girls.

AB 44 speaks to the injustices of Public Law 280 that is presented to us. AB 44 is a resource and a tool that can help us protect the safety and welfare our women and children on the ground right now in real time. Judge mentioned the gaps. Those gaps are in real time right now. AB 44. AB 273 have been introduced by Senator Ramos's colleagues.

Those are resources and tools that can fill the gaps in real time right now regarding the crisis that's happening in any country right now here in California. As I look back here in this moment, we have an opportunity in this room to move forward with solutions to protect the safety and welfare of Indian country. We're going to still continue to do that fight. That's who we are as Indian people continue to work hard and fight for on behalf of our citizens in the community.

But Public Law 280 was put there for a reason. I know that reason doesn't help us. Wasn't there meant for us? And we repeat that 70 years later. It's injustice. We got to look at it. That's what AB 44 is there now to have basic criteria. Klet's data to be on the same level, field playing field 70 years later. Being able to arrest somebody in real time on a reservation, that's an ask, you know, again, everybody in this room are tribal leaders.

We've come a long way and I think of something Ramos with his leadership and his colleagues in this room to address that and to bring this forward. But that's what Public Law 80 has done to us through the past 70 years regarding jurisdiction, regarding funding, regarding resources. We here are today regarding the crisis of NYP and I urge the legislators to continue to move forward to partner to work with us. Moving AB 44 and AB 273. Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman, for those insightful words. Our next speaker will be justice policy lead for Yurok tribe Judge Devon Lomayesva, a Member of the Iipay nation. Santa Isabel, an owner of La Misva, is chief judge of the Intertribal Court of Southern California that serves 12 Member tribes and six other tribes and tribal organizations throughout Southern California.

In her commitment to preserving the rights of Indian tribes via the practice of tribal and federal Indian law, she has held the position of Executive Director of California Indian Legal Services, in house tribal Attorney for the Iipay Nation of Santa Isabel, lecturer of San Diego State University American Indian Studies Department, and adjunct Professor at Palomar College. She has also served a four year term on the IPA Nation Tribal Council and numerous Committee positions. Please move forward with your testimony.

Good morning, Chairman Ramos and honorable Members of the Select Committee on Native American Affairs. As Chief Judge of the Iipay Court of Southern California for the last six years, a practicing Indian law attorney for over 20 years, and former Tribal Council Member of the Iipay Nation of Santa Isabel, I've seen firsthand how Public Law 280 continues to affect the protection and safety of tribal communities in San Diego and Riverside counties.

Much of what I will share with you today has been said, and this only demonstrates the breadth of the public safety issues facing California tribes. The Intertribal Court of Southern California ICSE, as stated, serves 12 Member tribes, six additional tribes, and an Indian housing authority primarily in San Diego and Riverside counties.

While many tribes in San Diego and Riverside have some form of tribal law enforcement or security, tribes are still reliant on local law enforcement via the sheriff or CHP for assistance with crimes occurring on the reservation. For the various reasons stated here today. During my tenure, I've watched tribes struggle to maintain their often one officer, tribal law enforcement departments. Others have elected for their officers to become Special Law Enforcement Commission certified.

However, no matter the size or qualifications of these tribal law enforcement agencies, they're often met with the same challenges that prevent adequate security of the reservations they serve, confusion as to the ability to detain persons on the reservation, inability to keep wrongdoers off tribal lands, and denied access to essential law enforcement tools to keep them and the communities they serve safe.

When crimes happen on the reservation, I continue to observe that tribes experience long wait times and in many cases, no in person response occurs at all. So then it becomes the first responder tribal law enforcement that is left to diffuse often dangerous situations on tribal lands. But, as mentioned, their hands are tied. While they may know the persons involved because they're from the tribal community, that's not always the case.

Often violent offenders, parolees, or persons with active warrants frequent our reservations, tribal law enforcement are left with little of those tools to safely address these situations. Lack of access to Kletz or the NCIC prevents fundamental protection with regard to officer and tribal citizen safety. The ICSC would not exist in its current structure if tribes did not have their own law enforcement. Most of our cases directly involve tribal law enforcement. The ICSE hears monthly civil citation calendars for approximately six tribes.

Many of these cases that come to the tribal court could also be violations of state criminal law. However, the majority do not involve local law enforcement because the violations are either that of tribal law or in many cases, local law enforcement has declined to take any action against the wrongdoer. These situations bring tribal law enforcement to the tribal court to handle these civil citations, and in fact, we hear nearly 600 civil citations a year in the intertribal court.

Most of our citations are related to drug and alcohol possession or being under the influence. Other matters that are high in our caseload include moving violations and infractions against the property, the peace, other persons health and safety, or the tribal government itself. Minors are also cited into the ICSE. These are serious matters relating to the safety and wellbeing of our tribal people and lands.

When these persons are cited into tribal court, the court has a modest security screening and a bailiff to ensure the safety of the proceedings. Additionally, the court will often utilize tribal law enforcement to serve persons with various court documents on tribal lands, an essential need for notice and due process. However, there is no current ability to check backgrounds in the state or federal system in the ICSE.

First, because tribes have been denied access to KLETs, and second, while the ICSE has been delegated authority by two tribes to do background checks and enter orders in the federal database via the tribal Access program, we have yet to go online because it's a requirement that orders are able to be verified 24 hours a day. Unfortunately, many of our tribal law enforcement agencies do not have the funds to staff 24 hours operations.

With regard to domestic violence protection orders. The ICSC has issued many of these orders over the years. However, these orders are often issued with recommendations that the victim keep extra copies and store the orders and share them with tribal leadership, tribal police, and others that may be protected by the order. This is because registering and enforcement of tribal court protective orders is not consistent by the state courts and law enforcement.

While the ICSC has and continues to meet with state district attorneys, courts and law enforcement, there is not yet a reliable system to ensure these protective orders are entered promptly and enforced. This lack of cooperation and coordination leads many tribal people to bypass the tribal court system, forcing them to participate in the state system.

This is a travesty in the eyes of tribal sovereignty that our people are forced to travel longer distances away from the familiarity of their tribal community to get essential orders of protection and then still wonder if those orders will be enforced when a violation is called in from the reservation. Further, even when coordination is positive with the state, there's ongoing need for training due to staff turnover resulting in delays in the registration and entering of these vital protective orders in the state courts.

It is not the tribal court's role to train the state court personnel in law enforcement. The remedy lies with a permanent acknowledgement and honoring of the foundational government to government relationship of tribes in the states.

In closing, it must be the enactment of legislation that requires tribal law enforcement and tribal courts be entitled to the same tools that all law enforcement and courts in California are entitled to, including peace officer status that grants the ability to run background checks and enforce orders that protect tribal communities and to require tribal courts orders are timely entered and enforced for the protection, safety and security of more than 100 federally recognized tribal nations that have governed California tribal lands since time immemorial.

Thank you for your time and consideration today. Ohaye. Thank you.

Thank you, Judge Loma. Yes. For your insightful words. That brings it full circle that we are talking about Public Law 280. We're talking about enforcement on tribal lands and nontribal Member enforcement of Crimes perpetrated, but bringing it full circle to the enforcement component of the court system itself. We do have some questions, but I want to open it up to my colleagues that have joined us also Assemblymember Avelino Valencia and Assembly Member ArambaLA and Assembly Member Sabrina Cervantes.

But this ends this panel, but now is the time for any questions from the DAIS. Assembly Member?

Yes. Thank you so much for providing the testimony and a background for all of us regarding Public Law 280. We know there are a lot of challenges, and you laid out many of those. I wanted just to get more clarification. When a violation is called in from the reservation, what typically occurs.

Speaking from the standpoint of the Yurok Tribal Police, because of our deputation agreements with two counties. So there's one of two things that's going to occur. That call is either going to come to our office where right now I have just shy of 24 hours coverage seven days a week right now, and I have an admin assistant that answers the phone during business hours. We do not have the resources for a full time dispatch center.

So at times those calls, if that call goes unanswered, we've been trying to educate the public on please call the sheriff's office either via 911 if you have an emergency, or via the non emergency numbers for a non emergent call. My officers are then dispatched from the county Sheriff's office because we don't have our own dispatch center right now. For a tribe that doesn't have a deputation agreement or doesn't have a tribal Police Department, they may not receive that call.

That call may go directly to the sheriff's officer. The CHP and those agencies are going to allocate resources based on availability.

And so it also depends on the relationship within each sheriff. County Sheriff has with tribal government.

Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Assembly Member Garcia? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to all the witnesses. I think whenever we talk about a specific issue, it's so important to contextualize it with the history. And when we look at the 1950s for native people, it wasn't, I would say, an era of progress and advancement that was being perpetuated by the policies of this government. I think of termination policies, relocation policies.

I think of all of the implications that that has had, that has led to many of the challenges that we see today on tribal reservations and then those native people who don't live on tribal reservations as a result of some of these policies. Right. To detach them from a place of origin and ultimately its people, its culture and so forth. When we talk about Public Law 280 right.

I think the proposal that's in front of us is a very modest request of integration for simple communication, and the communication that would go very far as it relates to addressing the public safety issues of the day on Indian reservations, which is the murdered missing women issue that continues to escalate as we look at the data. And because of the lack of communication that's taking place within our public safety realm of work, we're seeing a lack of really follow through in response to these issues.

So I just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate that. Anytime we're talking about these issues, it's so important that we put background, the history in order to better understand why we're where we are at today.

I had the fortunate pleasure, and I've said this before in another hearing, to work on as a young intern for a tribal government office to work on Public Law 280 Bill where at the time there was an effort to try to bring not just the communications aspect of it, but really give law enforcement, police the authority. I'm talking about in the early 2000s when this took place, and it was a big fight with law enforcement, both the Sheriff Association and the California Highway Patrol.

And what triggered this issue wasn't front and center. The issue that we're talking about today, the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women, it was simply giving the jurisdiction back to Indian country for purposes of protecting its boundaries and its people. There were tribes that were being accused and cited for impersonating police officers when traveling off the reservation by the sheriffs, by the CHP.

I would like to believe that the relationship between those agencies and our friends in Indian country have changed slightly enough to be able to move a policy like AB 44 that, again, is a very modest, reasonable, common sense solution to a large problem of interconnectivity to a system that will allow us to prevent issues from occurring, but also respond to the issues that are happening in a much more efficient and effective manner.

So I want to just lend my support to the effort and just again, emphasize how significantly important it is to contextualize these issues by talking about the history. And I started off with saying the 1950s wasn't an era of progress when it comes to native people through the policies of the state, or for that matter, the policies of the Federal Government. I understand them. Not everyone does. Not that means anything.

But by you sharing the history, it's extremely important that you set the tone for the conversation. And I just wanted to say thank you for your testimony.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Any others? I want to thank the panel for bringing forward very much needed information and dialogue.

Certainly, as we continue to move AB 44 forward, it is relevant that we had to educate the Legislature more on Public Law 280 and looking at the gaps and the lack of funding when the assertion was moved forward within that act of Congress that asserted jurisdiction over the State of California as one of the states that Public Law 280 encroached upon, but also looking at the prevention, the prevention team and identifying the gaps that need to be addressed.

That the Legislature hears these firsthand from those presenting from tribal Members and Indian people from the State of California, but also looking at the ability of holding public safety on tribal lands, especially with non-tribal members that come on to reservations and perpetrate crimes. We have to be able to work together as a Legislature to afford the tribes, California's first people, the ability to protect their people and their jurisdictions here in the State of California.

And to Chairman James comments we're still dealing with this public safety issue on Indian reservations and Public Law 280. For many of us, growing up on Indian reservations wasn't established to protect us Indian people. It was established to protect non-Indian people from Indian people themselves. So, it's a reverse of thinking on these different pieces of legislation that come our way, and we continue to work on those areas. But then we also get to the point of being able to hold people accountable.

Right, but then enforcing through the court system. So we still do have a long way to go. But thank you for all the presenters and bringing that voice forward. Now we're going to move to panel two tribal leaders concerns on MMIP. We have five chairs. There's a series of tribal leaders. The first five will be Wilton Rancheria vice Chairwoman Raquel Williams.

I own band of Miwak Indians Chairperson Sarah Dutsky, Shingle Springs band of MiWak Chairperson Regina Kalar and Pekun Rancheria of Chichansi's Indians Chairperson Janet Bill and then we'll rotate out and get the other speakers up. Before we get started, we'd like to offer any comments that Members would like to say when you joined us. Everything. Assembly Member RambLA I 'm going to appreciate.

Chairwoman Bill for the invitation to come and see firsthand in the Central Valley and to listen to so many of our community Members. I'm appreciative of Chair Ramos, of taking the time to make sure with intentionality that we were visiting all across the state and just wanted to take a moment and appreciate the person in my backyard who made sure we were opening doors to have those conversations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Any other comments? Avelino?

Thank you, Assembly Member. Happy to be here and appreciate the opportunity to learn and take this moment to also build on the good work that's been done thus far. Long road ahead, but we'll get there. Thank you.

Thank you. Member Carrillo.

I just want to say thank you for the history. Thank you, Assembly Member Ramos, for including me, and I look forward to working with you, sir, and everybody else here because these are important issues, issues that obviously been forgotten for so many years. And it's just been really educating for me to learn more and see how we can support you in this efforts. Again, you continue to bring this up, and that's something that is admirable. Thank you for continuing to bring this up to our attention.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other Members wishing to make comments? Thank you. We'll move on to panel two. Our first speaker is from Wilton Rancheria, Vice Chairwoman Raquel Williams. First elected in 2020 to council Vice Chair, Williams was then elected to the vice chairmanship in 2022. Since childhood, she has held fast to her culture, ceremonies and celebrations. Vice Chair.

Good morning. Thank you. Hi, everyone. My name is Raquel Williams. I'm the vice Chairwoman for Wilton Rancheria. It is my honor to welcome you guys here today on the homelands of our people. It is an honor to be here amongst other tribal leaders while bringing issue, while bringing awareness and a solution based approach to this issue.

When thinking about missing and murdered Indigenous people across the state and the country, I think about all the tribal leaders and the leadership in this room working to make California Indian country safe for all of its citizens. First and foremost, I'd like to thank California State officials, especially Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta, and Assemblyman Ramos for your leadership. Assemblyman Ramos, you've been an unwavering champion for our people. We could not have made this substantial progress without your guidance.

I would also like to thank your staff and for their hard work and planning events for the rest of this week. This morning you've had the pleasure of hearing and learning from a powerful lineup of California's most respectful tribal leaders and citizens, each with important requests and call to action. But I leave you with only one, and this one's even free. That request is to listen.

The leaders speaking after me will certainly share staggering statistics, incredibly painful stories of loved ones who have been taken from us, family Members whose lives have been tragically cut short, and in the communities who will always mourn the loss of one less leader, one less elder teacher, one less person to carry on our cultures and traditions to our future generations. These stories are undoubtedly compel you to want to act. They'll want you to do something, anything, to help in this crisis.

But know that most important thing that you can do today is listen. The challenges in our communities are best met by solutions that are led, informed, and shaped by tribal leaders and governments. Listen to these leaders. Listen to these citizens evaluate and respect our tribal voices. Our tribal nations are all distinct and unique, and the needs of each nation may vary greatly. But our people have empowered us as leaders because they understand the needs of our respective communities.

We must demand that all levels of government across the country work together to ensure swift and effective action when one of our citizens goes missing. The Federal Government must honor its treaties and trust responsibilities by partnering and collaborating with our tribal nations on legislation to create and build infrastructure for the need to combat this crisis. Next, it is vital that California continues to strengthen its government to government relationships with tribal nations and empower tribal sovereignty to inspire self determination.

This means including tribal leadership at every stage of the legislative process, understanding that the multifaceted jurisdictional issues that exist in this state, and being willing to ask for education and support to fully understand our complexities of living under Public Law 280s jurisdictions. Finally, we must encourage that local governments and law enforcement agencies continue to work with tribal law enforcement so that every missing person case is treated with the same level of urgency and respect.

We know that this crisis does not have a single cause or an easy solution. We must not only focus on how we can best protect our most valuable people, we must also work and learn more about why this is happening at a disproportionate level. We must strive to identify underlying causes that result in these shocking numbers so that we may prioritize resources and funding available to support both immediate efforts, long term education and planning. Thank you again for this opportunity to speak here today.

It is now my honor to join you in listening and learning from the rest of our speakers. Thank you again.

Thank you for also showing the resiliency of our people to get through a testimony right there is construction going on, and I'll let the chair of overseeing that know that this is impacting the Committee, but that construction is going on, but it shows the willingness to continue to get the voice out in recording into the official record. Our next speaker is from the Ione Band of Miwok Indians, Chairperson Sara Dutschke.

Chairwoman Dusky in her first term as chair, she is a law partner in Kaplan, Kirich and Rockwell in San Francisco, where she practices federal Indian law. Her firm is focused on exclusively representing tribal government. She is a graduate of Chico State, UC Davis and the University of Pacific McGeorge School of Law. She has been a longtime chair of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians.

Thank you, Assembly Member Ramos, and good morning to you and Members of the Select Committee on Native American Affairs. I'm going to echo Assembly Member Ramos's comments about the resilience of Indian country and my cousin here, Vice Chairwoman Williams, as loud as that might get, we know how to speak much louder, as Assembly Member Ramos said. I'm Sarah Dutschke. I'm actually now in my second term as my tribe's leader, and I'm also a practicing attorney in federal Indian law.

I come to this with kind of a unique perspective, perhaps both as a leader. I've been a leader for a Shorter time than I've been an attorney, but I've dealt with issues surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous people, violence in our communities as a leader and representative of not only my tribe, but as a legal representative of tribes throughout California and actually the nation. So thank you for allowing me to speak before you today.

I want to start by, of course, commending Assemblymember Ramos on his hard work over the past few years to get the word out on this issue. It's very critical and important, and we're very grateful for your leadership. I also want to thank Chairman Joe James specifically. He and his staff have been working hard, not just here at the Legislature, but every single day to bring awareness to this issue.

And we're very appreciative of the efforts of that tribe, sharing their story and bringing this issue to the forefront. The work of the tribal leaders here today, of all of you in the Assembly, it's really a labor of love. We've seen a lot of progress in recent months, but there's still a lot more to go. As I said this morning at the press conference, the creation of the Feather Alert System last year was pretty impressive.

We've seen pretty significant support for funding requests in the Legislature, which is very much appreciated, and, of course, much needed awareness to this issue. Without these efforts, the crisis would continue to grow well beyond its already monumental proportions. Many of my esteemed colleagues and friends testifying before you today will be sharing stories of missing and murdered loved ones. Some already have. Some will be encouraging this body to continue its legislative efforts. We heard a lot on AB 44 this morning.

Most will be offering you real, workable solutions for combating this problem in the near and in the long term. So, with this in mind, I'm going to limit my comments to one thing that I think is absolutely critical to addressing this at the state level and combating this crisis. That's the creation of the Red Ribbon Panel. My colleague here, Chairperson Bill, mentioned the Red Ribbon Panel this morning and her comments in the press conference. We both actually spoke about the Red Ribbon panel last year.

Apparently, we're like minded on this subject, which is fantastic. We cannot successfully combat the crisis in the absence of real time data. You heard about that this morning. And a comprehensive, coordinated approach. The creation and implementation and support for a Red Ribbon panel is the ideal solution.

This panel should be tasked with the responsibility to investigate and fully assess the scope and scale of the crisis, to recommend best practices and solutions, to establish the greatest opportunities to address and prevent these atrocities that are happening in our community, and to open avenues for real and robust communication between tribal governments, the state government, and actually the Federal Government as well.

It must focus both on the historic and modern day factors that have contributed to the crisis, from decades of forced trauma and assimilation, to the lack of adequate resources that plague nearly every tribal community in the state. It must be comprised of thought leaders and respected professionals at all levels of government, including education, health care, career development, employment, social justice, law enforcement. It must be sufficiently funded and supported by the Legislature. We can't just create it.

We have to give it the tools it needs to succeed. It absolutely cannot operate in a vacuum. It must not only include state representatives, but also federal representatives and, of course, tribal representatives working together collectively to tackle this crisis and develop good, workable solutions. I had colleagues this morning speak to you about PL 280, and I have pretty strong views on PL 280 that I'll refrain from sharing here.

But the implementation of PL 280 over the many decades that it's been applicable in this state underscores and demonstrates the reason why cross jurisdictional cooperation is absolutely critical to solving this problem. Fundamentally, though, the Red Ribbon Panel must approach this work with open mind and open hearts, make an effort to see and evaluate the situation through a tribal lens, and be fully committed to finding solutions that can truly bring an end to this crisis.

I want to thank you for affording me the time to speak with you today and urge you to build upon today's discussions and last year's events. Keep the conversation going. Focus on action to prevent the crisis rather than simply reaction to address negative effects, and work with tribal leaders in the true spirit of not only government to government relations, but true partnership. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. And just to be clear, we're not the only hearing room that's having this type of noise when they're having hearings. There is construction going on. We're hoping to get the annex built before 2026, and so that way it puts us all back into the building. So, just so you know, it's not geared towards this hearing. It's across the board, as the other chairs on the Committee could attest to. But we are trying to quiet it down a little bit.

And our next speaker is from the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. Chairperson Regina Cuellar has been a tribal leader since her beginning term in 2018. She continues to lead with attention to detail and commitment to bettering her people and all people in the State of California.

Chairwoman, thank you, Buenomoco. Chair Ramos and Members of the Committee. My name is Regina Cuellar Chairwoman of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. Thank you for allowing me to be here today. Tribal nations across the country have long sought solutions to combat the epidemic of missing and murdered people from within our communities. Such solutions, utilized by my tribe, rely heavily on two consistent factors that have been proven successful again and again. Meaningful collaboration and consultation.

As the only federally recognized tribe in our county, it is imperative that the solutions plaguing our tribal communities are solved with the input and voices of our people. Collaboration and consultation within the entire system is necessary, especially amongst our most local agencies. But state, federal, and tribal players must be involved at all levels.

The potential of these relationships culminates in opportunities like the passing of AB 1314 brought forth at this very Select Committee informational hearing one year ago, which, from drafting to implementation, excellently showcases how effective a coordinated effort on all fronts can be. This is not the only example of success when good faith effort in this way is pursued with tribes.

In 2014, my tribe, the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, and the Superior Court of El Dorado County made history by establishing the first joint jurisdictional court in the state and only the second in the country. It was named the Family Wellness Court. This court has two judges, one from each court that hears cases involving child welfare, substance abuse, juvenile delinquency, and truancy. By hearing cases alongside the county, the tribe has access to case information that we otherwise would not have.

With this information, the tribe provides a holistic and culturally based case plan for the court participant. This plan helps identify and provide solutions for risk factors that could lead the court participant into becoming a missing or murdered Indigenous person. The court judges then hold the participant accountable for fulfilling the case plan. Through this joint process, our participants have experienced greater success than those who have gone through solely the state court systems due to the success of the Family Wellness Court.

Just last year, our tribe signed two MOUs with the county to expand the court services to include a coordinated domestic violence court and a driving under the influence program. I want to take this opportunity to encourage increased support for funding joint jurisdictional courts, an invaluable tool for Indigenous people desperately in need of healing, and a holistic cultural approach this court provides.

In 2022, our Tribal Police Department entered a cross deputy agreement referred to as a special law enforcement Commission or SLACK, with the BIA designating our Shingle Springs tribal Police officers as deputy special officers and granting them the authority to enforce federal laws on tribal lands. This is an excellent exercise of tribal sovereignty by allowing us as a tribe to shed our reliance on the Federal Government to enforce federal laws on tribal lands.

Enhancing these law enforcement capabilities and placing them back into the hands of the tribe is critically important to the health and safety of our community and surrounding neighbors. It is an honor for them to be sworn in as federal officers and represent the 21st Tribal Department in the state to enter into one of these agreements. It is our hope that this select leads to continued collaboration and acts as a precursor to further local cross deputy agreements.

Additionally, we must acknowledge that tribes face unfair barriers to crime information databases via state networks. At the federal level, the Tribal Access Program Tap is an avenue to criminal information. My tribe is fortunate to be among the tribes selected for access to tap. However, the void remains for state information via KLETs. The California Law Enforcement Telecommunication System under Government Code 15150, which establishes the Clint's tribal police officers are not included among the law enforcement agencies eligible to access the vital criminal information system.

Therefore, tribal police and courts cannot receive or share criminal history, information or protective orders with outside agencies. An absence of access. This void in information limits both the tribes and state's ability to protect indigenous people and forces us to rely on state and local law enforcement to provide this vital info to tribes on a timely manner.

In context of MMIP, we are talking about cases where a matter of hours makes a difference and for tribes to go without direct access to this information is too costly and we will pay with lives lost, which we have it is a sad reality that native communities experience a disproportionate amount of loss, including loss of land, loss of our history, loss of our language, and loss of our culture, but we won't tolerate losing our people.

This year, our priority must be to work together to ensure our tribal police gain access to ClEDs as proposed by AB 44 by Assembly Member Ramos. AB 44 takes this first steps in creating parity between tribal law enforcement and other peace officers in the state, thereby empowering tribes to help secure their own public safety. Steps like the Feather Alert are just a first and vital access to systems like these that can help cut the response time of our missing and murdered cases.

It is essential if we expect to see continued progress and mitigation of these cases plaguing Indian country. However, there's much more to do and we are here today speaking up for our missing brothers and sisters. We are demanding that the State of California speak up with us to help find them. Thank you Chair Ramos, for inviting us to be here today. You have been an outstanding leader in bringing this critical issue to the forefront.

MMIP is important not only to my tribe, but for every tribe in California and throughout the nation. I appreciate you shining light on the need to reduce uncertainty regarding criminal jurisdiction and improving public safety on tribal lands. We support initiatives for funding to study challenges related to the reporting and identification of missing and murdered Indigenous people in California, especially our young women and girls.

Just being here today, face to face with tribal, state and local agencies together show that Assembly Member Ramos and players at all levels are staying true to their promise and commitment of consultation and collaborations with tribes. Thank you.

Thank you so much again for showing the resiliency of our people to get through even though obstacles come our way and bringing up the areas of trying to find solutions that tribes are moving forward with MOUs, with the court system, but also the cross deputation component, and I believe you said with the BIA. And so that would be a question later on as far as the federal component, federal laws versus state laws, being able to look at those.

So our next speaker is from the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians. Chairperson Janet Bill Chairperson Bill graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 2012 with a Master of Arts degree in 2013. She received a Jurist doctorate degree from the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in 2020, specializing in Indian law, and was honored with the highest distinction of her amount of pro-bono hours.

Ms. Bill is currently a licensed attorney through the State Bar of California and has served as the Vice President on the Board of Directors for the California Indian Law Association and is a Member of the Board of Trustees for the Sierra Unified School District. She is the first Native American to serve in this distinguished position in the school district's 100 year existence.

Chairwoman thank you, Chairman Ramos. Before I begin my remarks, we would greatly appreciate it if we could submit written testimony after the hearing, given the construction that is going on. Yes, again.

Hilly, Hilly. I'm Chairperson Janet K. Bill of the Pecun Rancheria, the Chuck Chansey Indians, a sovereign nation located in McDerra county near the south entrance of Yosemite National Park. On behalf of my nation, Mitch Gais, thank you to Chairman James C. Ramos and the California Legislative Native American Caucus for your leadership and for organizing the missing and murdered Indigenous People MMIP Awareness Week and a special acknowledgement to Assembly Member ArambuLA for attending the inaugural Feather Alert event that our tribe hosted in December of last year.

As you have heard from my fellow tribal leaders, for so many here today, the MMIP crisis is personal because we are losing our family, our friends, our lineage.

Thus, it is our request that this becomes an annual event to ensure the MMIP crisis continues to be a forefront issue across the State of California and to acknowledge that we all have the collective responsibility for safeguarding the peace, safety, and General welfare of our tribal communities so that future generations of Indigenous people live a life of peace and prosperity.

We took a monumental step last year with the passage of AB 13114 and the establishment of the Feather Alert system at the beginning of this year, but we must do more. It is incumbent upon our elected leaders to elevate the MMIP crisis and implement a tribe centered, comprehensive strategy to end the systemic epidemic. Indigenous as people must have a voice to combat this MMIP crisis. The establishment of a Red Ribbon panel under AB 1574 begins to address this concern.

Our native children in foster care are targets for these predators. AB 273 provides additional resources to better protect one of our most vulnerable populations, our youth. Additionally, we must correct the Public Law 280 criminal jurisdictional gap that continues to allow predators to prey on our Indigenous people. AB 44 advances the much-needed parity between our tribal police and California law enforcement. We applaud this Legislature for introducing numerous bills to stand behind your commitment to partnering with tribes to end the MMIP crisis.

However, absent the necessary capital to Fund these MMIP prevention initiatives, our Indigenous people will continue to go missing and be murdered. Quite simply, the lack of funding leaves predators free. Free to continue ravaging our communities without consequence. You all have the ability to not only advocate for, but most importantly, allocate the necessary funding to address the MMIP crisis.

As always, we stand strongest together, and we are committed to partnering with you to dismantle the MMIP pipeline that was created after centuries of disenfranchisement and marginalization of our Indigenous people. Mitch Gais, thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony and working through, even with the distractions, but it's very important for us to get this out right. And so written testimony, if you have it, please submit it so we can get it into the record. Now we're going to move to the next presenters. They're here. We have Buena Vista Rancheria Miwok Indians Chairwoman Rhonda Pope Flores, Brown Valley Indian Trident Randall Britton, and I believe that's panel two.

Thank you so much for making your way here to testify and bring awareness to this issue. And again, the resiliency of our people to work through distractions, things that are going on. If you can, please speak loudly into the mic. Even if it stops working, still speak loudly into the Mic. But our first presenter will be Buena Vista Rancheria Miwak Indians Chairwoman Rhonda Pope Flores, who's in her third term as chair. Under her leadership, the tribe has established Member services, social services, and childcare services.

She has established an environmental Department also. She formed the Jesse Flying Cloud Pope foundation in 2007 and is currently on the board for the Amador Chamber of Commerce.

Chairwoman, that's so dated. Sorry, I don't know.

Is it outdated?

It's okay. And I stopped counting terms. No one wants to be the Chairwoman.

Long term Chairwoman.

Long, long term. Rhonda Pope Flores, Chairwoman for Buena Vista. Thank you for this opportunity. I guess I look at my father, sorry, this is a crisis, and it's been happening for a long time. My father, Jesse Flying Cloud Pope, is an example of this. He was killed on a reservation, 1975. And what I like to say is the county that surrounds our reservation, Amador County, is not a very friendly county to our tribe.

And I can't speak for our neighboring tribe, but for our tribe, it has not been a great experience. My father's death was just rule the suicide and nothing further was done. And so I kind of take this all the way back to him. And then I think of all the other ancestors that are no longer with us. I've had those that have come to our reservation and dance, that are ceremonies, and they're no longer with us. We are behind the curve on this.

Why has it taken a movement for us to do this now? But I do thank you, Assembly Member Ramos, for all your work and everything that you've done. But we're behind the curve on this. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of local, state, federal level, and none of them talk to each other, so nothing really gets done. And it's frustrating.

And we have to connect all of those gaps so that all this legislation that we put forth, it actually works because we don't talk to one another. Left side doesn't know what the right side is doing. Everyone spoke a lot about public law 280. A lot of laws have been established that affect our tribes, not necessarily benefiting our tribes, but having an impact on us.

And it all is intertwined and connected, and it all has an effect on us, even down to our foster care and the laws that we're going back and forth on now just to keep our sovereignty, to protect our soverEignty. We're supposed to be able to take care of our people. And yet laws and policies and things are established that actually prevent us from doing that. Our tribe works with law enforcement. We don't have a good relationship with law enforcement.

We're in the infancy stages of establishing our tribal courts. I've heard all of the struggles that have been going on and the information that doesn't get shared, and it's unfortunate because we're supposed to be able to do that. We're supposed to be able to take care of our people. And I won't go too long. I just wanna. I wanna. I want to say her name. Khadija. Khadija Britton. Andrea Chick White. Rachel Sloan. Emily Rizling. Nicole Smith.

I want to stop right there for Nicole Smith because she danced at our ceremony, just not too long. And then we hear about what happened, and it's sad, it's unfortunate. And we get left and forgotten, or the cases get closed because lack of evidence, it's lazy. And it's because we're Indian people. And I go back to my dad. It's because he was a drunk Indian. That's how he was labeled. So it's not worth looking into.

But all these souls that we've lost, we can't leave this undone. We have to work, and we have to push to bring justice to all of these individuals that we've lost. It's not right. And thank you again for your work. Thank you for listening. And I just ask that we move forward and that this is successful. And thank you.

Thank you so much, Chairwoman, for your testimony and bringing it full circle that we talk about MMIW MMIP and bringing it home. These are real people in our communities. In our communities are suffering. Next, we're going to have from the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake, Chairperson Sherry Treppa, who has been a longtime chairperson of her tribe and has continued to work in California Indian legal services and board of directors and on many issues affecting California's first people.

Chairwoman Treppa, good morning. Thank you, Assemblymember Ramos, and thank you to the Committee for the Invitation to speak on the panel. Today. Like many others in the room, the missing and murdered Indigenous people crisis hits close to home for our tribe. It is a devastating reality in our state, and I am grateful to the Committee and the California Legislature for addressing this issue. We look forward to working with you on combating the crisis. My name is Sherry Trepa.

I am the Chairwoman of Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake. I've been the Chairwoman since 2008. Our tribe is located in Lake County, California. It's about 2 hours northwest of here. Very beautiful, yet remote area. Unfortunately, the county is known for being the poorest county in California. The Habematolel have occupied the region since time immemorial. Today, although our reservation boundaries were 565 acres at 1.0 as a result of termination, our tribe has today just a little over 20 acres.

Unfortunately, and notably, our history has not been very positive. Many of our women and children were massacred during the Bloody island massacre, which, notably the marker is less than a mile away from our current land base. Despite adversity, the tribe successfully reorganized in 1998 and formally approved its new constitution in 2004. And in years since our new government has worked to restore the tribe's economic development portfolio while preserving our culture and history, and we continue to strive to pursue self-determination and self-sufficiency.

As others have stated, today, Native Americans, especially women and girls, are disproportionately at risk of violence, murder, and going missing at much higher rates than people of other groups. Not only is the murder rate 10 times higher than the national average for women living on reservations, but according to the Urban Indian Health Institute, murder is the third leading cause of death for Native women.

Reasons range from less than adequate assistance from law enforcement due to stereotypes when Indigenous people go missing, reporting issues due to jurisdictional complications, lack of resources in tribal communities, and historical trauma cycles that result in drug use, domestic violence, homelessness, and human trafficking in tribal communities. Unfortunately, Habematol has experienced the impacts of MMIP crisis in our own community. In June of 2017, a 35 year old tribal Member mother was tragically murdered in a domestic violence incidence, leaving behind six children.

Her death and the manner in which she died shattered our community, and the devastation was felt not just throughout our small tribe, but the whole North Shore community. This mom was beaten to death in front of her young children, the youngest being 11 months old. What is worse, the trial took four years to get scheduled, leaving the family of the victim with no closure for far too long. Sadly, her mother, who was caring for the three younger children, passed away before the trial started.

As part of an effort to shed light on the issue of MMIP, the Habematolel donated over $20,000 to Hope Through Art foundation in 2021. HTR is a nonprofit organization which helps communities heal through art and bring public awareness and education to social issues like human trafficking, homelessness, and others. The donations from the tribe were used for the project, which provide a mural tribute to our member in our tribal community, as well as a mural in Chico, California, and a training workshop for 12 youth artist interns.

In an ongoing effort to address the crisis among others in our community, Habematolel has partnered with local law enforcement agencies to develop and host regular training opportunities for community leaders, law enforcement, and the public on issues such as PL 280, MMIP, violence Against Women, Indian Child Welfare act, and many others. These trainings have resulted in better communication, collaboration, and cooperation between the local community and the tribe, something Habematol is dedicated to pursuing through all levels of government.

We invite anyone on the Committee to attend one of our trainings in the near future if you are interested in participating. The MMIP crisis is just one of many issues tribes face in this country that stem from the historical trauma of our people as the impacts are generational. Our tribe is working toward addressing these issues internally through youth programs, transitional housing and education, but we must address them on a larger scale.

The legislation that has been proposed, AB 1574, AB 273 will be instrumental in addressing some of the matters. I would be remiss in not making comments on the PL 280. We experienced an issue that resulted in the death of a family Member as a result of the un-education of law enforcement around PL 280, and that is why we sponsor so many trainings. Unfortunately, there is an issue that resulted in a staging effort when emergency services were called for our family Member within the reservation boundaries.

Unfortunately, as a result of staging, that is that the emergency services vehicles would not go into what they considered reservation area. But it is not in trust. It is within our reservation boundaries, but none of the land is in trust at this point for the tribe. But as a result of staging, the emergency services would not go into the area without sheriff's backup. And unfortunately, the woman that was having a cardiac arrest passed away as a result. I really appreciate you taking on PL 280 again.

I do think mandatory training for law enforcement where tribal communities are in their areas is really pivotal. I appreciate you taking the time to address this day and let me talk on the panel. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that. And growing up on the Indian reservation, we're very familiar with staging before law enforcement would come on to the reservation itself and slowing down the response time that's there. And thank you for bringing to the awareness the need for the training for Public Law 280 in our communities and finding a way to educate the community on truly the impact that it has and what Public Law 280 truly means. So, thank you for that.

Our next speaker is from the Round Valley Indian tribes President, Randall Britain. Under his leadership, Round Valley Indian tribes declared their first MMIP related State of emergency on April 16 of this year. And it was just a couple weeks ago that Round Valley has succumbed to fatalities on the reservation within a three-week period. Fatalities of two individuals that prompted the tribe to declare a State of emergency. And the State of emergency is not just for the two tribes.

This is a State of emergency for all California Indian people in the State of California. President?

Yes. Thank you, Assemblyman Ramos, Members of the Select Committee for inviting me to speak today. My name is Randall Britton. I'm an enrolled Member of Round Valley Indian tribes of Wilaki and Nomalaki descent. I am also the current Round Valley Indian tribes tribal President. Since declaring the State of emergency two weeks ago. Declaring a State of emergency itself doesn't change the mentalities of those willing to commit the crimes.

It doesn't change the mentality of those jurisdictional authorities trying to decide who the challenge and funding burden belongs. When all is said and done, that criminal gets to proceed on without being caught, and in some cases, an Indian country go on knowing they may never be caught. But for the victim's families, they get to live with the agony of no closure, no resolve, and no justice.

The reasons the crimes persist the way they do because of the many challenges our tribes face in the current status of the PL 280 first of all, I want to take time to acknowledge Assemblymember Ramos for reaching out and always being on our side as a tribe for his work on these issues such as AB 44, AB 1314 last September, our tribe and Valley community acknowledged Assemblymember Ramos's work for all the tribes in California since he's been in office.

We acknowledged him as our grand marshal in our Indian Days festival at Round Valley last fall. It was a time of celebration and wins, so thank you. But now we are in an unfortunate, exemplary disposition in our current state. Our Valley community and tribe already has had its host of challenges in this short year, our valley riddled with hate and murder, and why? What benefits a person to take another's life, especially that of an innocent young woman with her whole life in front of her?

This was a family Member of mine. My family is still dealing with the loss of Khadijah Rose Britton, who has been missing since 2018. And this is just in my family. Not to mention the family that lost a young man a month ago and another about a year ago, both to homicide. All the individuals I just mentioned, all under the age of 30. I have to ask, what is the point?

Our efforts as tribal governmental leaders, if we are not being met at least halfway, all of us today have to come to the door step of your house, which is also our house. But the way we have been forgotten, ignored and silenced on most issues when it comes to our needs, sometimes it feels this isn't our house. As every other citizen of the state, even though we are a sovereign, we are still citizens of this state.

Sometimes our sovereignty is used as a weapon against us, then as a tool for culture and preservation, and especially when we are underresourced, hurting from our people dying because of jurisdictional challenge and underfunded expectations. Yurok declared a State of emergency. Round Valley has declared a State of emergency. How many more tribes have to endure our fate I hope our pleas are meaningful. If we, as tribal nations under unity, need to declare a statewide Indian State of emergency, then that's what I will push for.

I spoke to it being in solidarity during the press conference, and I will fight for that until our people who are missing and murdered, are brought home. I urge your tribes present today and all those represented today to consider a unified declaration, because we are one. When one hurts, we all hurt a giant.

It's. Sorry. Excuse me. A unified declaration could possibly wake the sleeping giant of what our sovereignty really is capable of. Our unity and not division are love and peace, not hate and anger. Nothing great ever came from the belly of anger and hate. The anger and hate I speak of continues to kill my people. This must stop. It must end.

May the efforts of the Assembly Member Ramos and those legislators present today with us and for the rest of the week, may your efforts with ours create the change we seek today and furthermore, for all of Indian country. Thank you again, Assembly Member Ramos and Members of the Select Committee.

Thank you for that. And this concludes panel two. I believe I got everybody right. Yeah. And any questions from the DAIS? I just want to reiterate some of the different topics that were talked about as far as trying to find ways to engage the community with MOUs and training on Public Law 280 in ICA areas that are there, but also forming those alliances that are there.

And there was the speaking of the Red Ribbon panel, which we do want to move forward on that and have some hearings on it so that we could get better equipped to understand what it truly is that we want to see. We could do a Red Ribbon Panel, but we have to have the funding and the commitment right from the Legislature. So we want to do have a hearing on that moving forward in anticipation of January, in fine tuning a piece of legislation that's there.

We also want to, again, apologize for the distractions during the testimony, but it's so important to have our own people's voices at these hearings to hear directly from us on these issues and to the President, our deepest condolences to you and your family and your tribe for what you're still going through and all of our people for that.

So our next panel, we will move to panel three, and the speakers on panel three will be Mary Lopez, keeper from Director of Office of Native American affairs of the Attorney General. We also have Catalina Chacone, Commissioner on the California Commission of the Status of Women and Girls Samantha Thornsberry, program Director of the Kuea Consortium April McGill, Director of community partnership and Projects and Morningstar, Golly. Vice President, Vice chairperson of the Pitt River Tribe, Executive Director of Indigenous Justice. I think we have enough seats.

Want to thank Assembly Member Soria for joining us today.

Morningstar needs to go first. She has to go to San Francisco.

Thank you. Our first presenter will be Morningstar Gailey. Vice Chairperson of Pit River Tribe, Executive Director of Indigenous Justice. A Member of the Band of Pit River Tribe, she is deeply committed to advocating for Indigenous sovereignty. Please proceed.

Sasolai thank you to Assemblyman Ramos. Jimmy Senwee De com Greetings relatives. I want to open by thanking the Committee members and Sasolai to Assemblymember Ramos for efforts in leading the successful passage of AB 2022. Removing the S word from over 95 place names in California. Through the passage of AB 2022, we are witnessing and experiencing healing in action and the writing of truth in history. We are in support of AB 273, the tribally led Youth and foster care Bill as a first step in filling the gaps of vulnerable Native youth. We say that 100% of Native youth are considered system impacted due to the double waves of genocide that has been experienced by California Indian peoples. I want to share some of the national and statewide statistics of violence against Native American peoples. Alarming statistics about the rates in which Native women, girls and two spirit peoples go missing or are murdered in the United States. Four out of five Native women have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime. That's 84.3% of Native women, more than half who have experienced sexual violence. Native women face murder rates more than 10 times the national average, even though Native women are 1.1% of the total US population and 2.2% of the US population of women, homicide being the third leading cause of death among Native girls and women aged 10 to 24, and the fifth leading cause of death for Native women aged 25 to 34. In 2016, there were 5702 reports of missing Native women and girls through the US Department of Justice's Federal Missing Persons database. This number is likely much higher as there is no reliable count on how many Native women, girls and two spirit peoples go missing or are murdered annually. I want to thank Director Lopez Kiefer and the Office of Native American affairs for their efforts in gathering data and reporting and meeting directly with our families of those missing and murdered Indigenous Peoples. The disappearance and trafficking of Indigenous women and girls started in California with the Gold Russian enslavement, the incarceration of California Indigenous Peoples and missionization. Indigenous peoples that have disappeared and been murdered, and we are committed to uplifting justice on stolen lands. Not only did they commit the theft of Indigenous lands in exchange for Native women's bodies, but they erased our tribal place names and created names with this slur and expletive as a way to further cause violence, erasure, and invisibility. This furthered a goal of upholding white supremacy and colonization in a way that is demeaning and derogatory to Indigenous women and girls. Contributing factors include environmental racism and state violence. Today, as we honor our missing and murdered Indigenous relatives, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the intersections that lead to MMIW. This includes suicide ideation, codependency, victims of trafficking, lateral oppression, disenrolled Native peoples, alcohol and drug addiction, domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, complex mental health issues, complex trauma, unsheltered peoples, racism, families who are placed in harm by the personal egos and agendas of community Members, not being quote unquote Indian enough with the lack of family support, judgment of family on victims, and survivors of crime system involved, youth blind removals, and the children affected by all of the above. Youth in foster care are the most vulnerable to this violence and abuse. They are invisible, their identities kept confidential by the government, they suffer from mental health issues, drug addiction, and are hunted by buyers and traffickers. They are suffering and they need healthy parents, families, and communitieS. By assessing the needs and advocating alongside and on behalf of system involved Indigenous peoples throughout Northern California, Indigenous justice seeks to elevate needed support in creating pathways of healing and empowerment for survivors of violence back into our tribal and intertribal communities. For the past 160 years, California Native peoples within tribal and intertribal communities are living, resilient and thriving while continuing to break legacies of intergenerational trauma through traditional pathways to healing. We as tribal members are committed to support this healing through community organizing, advocacy, centering of cultural practices through movement building and action. As we organize throughout our tribal and urban communities, we are accountable for responding to the changing needs of those communities. We are committed to working for structural change and transformation of the dominant narratives in which our stories are told. Narratives that blame and further marginalized system impacted Indigenous peoples. Within rural, tribal and inner city communities, there is a dire need across the state to invest in girls, and gender nonbinary, nonconforming people's potential, advance their rights, and address the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, men, boys, trans, and two spirit relatives. MMIP is the legacy of resource extraction in the form of gold mining and mining and plundering values of excess and greed and the genocide of California Indian peoples that still very much exist today. California Indian girls and women are going missing and being murdered at exponentially increasing rates. Over half of these cases documented in California have occurred within the last five years. Here are some of the DECOM stolen relatives on stolen land that we are here in support of and their families finding justice for their loved one. Nick Patterson, Pitt River Tribal Member. 26 years old Last seen January 24, 2020. Just last week at the missing in California Indian country event hosted by the Office of Native American Affairs, Shasta and Modoc Counties agreed to work collaboratively for the first time in three years. Dewey McGarva, Pitt River Tribal Member who went missing in 2013. Milton Yogi McGarva, Pitt River Tribal Member. And my relative Jessica Alva, 35, Blackfeeding Yaki, with family ties to Pitt river, was murdered in San Francisco. Her death is still ruled as a homicide. Nicole Smith, Manchester Point Arena Tribal Member Murdered November 19, 2017. We were honored to have her family present at our MMIP Walk this past weekend. Melody St. Clair Turner, 36. Last seen in Redding, California, missing since October 2012. Amber Hope Mcdonald, 15, murdered in Auburn, California in 1984, Pitt River Tribal Member. Heather Cameron, 28. Missing since 2012 in Redding, California. Khadija Britton, 23, abducted February 7, 2018, a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribe. Ruby Sky Montelago, 15, murdered on the Round Valley Indian Reservation. Nick Whipple, 20, murdered on the Round Valley Indian Reservation. Angela McConnell, Hoopa Tribal Member, 26. murdered in Shasta Lake in 2018. I want to share that we do have permission to share this information on behalf of those families that have been impacted. These are just some of the names that we are here to uplift today. Some of the names that we fight daily for justice and healing of our families and communities. We are here to pay that love and respect to those that were not able to live their lives and show up in their true and sacred self due to the threat of violence and being killed. We know that the intention behind state and colonial violence is upheld by white supremacy and targeted at our relatives. We know that Indigenous peoples are most impacted are not recognized and acknowledged on their own lands due to colonial violence and border walls imposed on sovereign lands and territories. We denounce these colonial frameworks that intentionally keep us divided and tell us that we are different from one another. The disappearance and trafficking of indigenous women and girls and starting here in California with the gold rush and enslavement and incarceration of those Indigenous peoples that also began with missionization over 250 years ago. We acknowledge the multitudes of Indigenous peoples not recognized to colonial violence, and not only did they commit the theft of Indigenous peoples on Indigenous lands and in exchange for naval women's bodies, they erased those tribal place names and created names with slurs and expletives as a way to further cause violence, erasure, and invisibility. I am happy to share again the successful passage of AB 2022, authored by Assemblyman Ramos and was signed September 23, 2022 into law by Governor Newsom. AB 2022 and the Feather Alert AB 1314 are the first of many steps forward. As Indigenous justice advocates, we denounce resource extraction in all forms, especially the extraction of our California Indian girls, women, two spirit relatives and peoples. We uplift the protection of Indigenous bodies on stolen land. We are committed to our healing and transformation fully and unilaterally. In order to heal, we must address the painful and heartbreaking truth of what our peoples continue to experience today to locally through all my relations.

Thank you so much for that testimony and taking it back to the mentality, the mentality of the State of California towards Indian people and that mentality carried forward, that is a direct relation to the very issue we're talking about here today. Thank you so much for that. Our next speaker is going to be Catalina Chacon, Commissioner of the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls.

I just want to reiterate, if we can please submit our comments because I really wanted to hear everything everyone has had to say. Miyam Notoon Catalina Chacone Pichangayam Good morning everyone. My name is Catalina Chacon and I serve on the Pachanga Tribal Council. I'm the Vice Chair of Tassen, Vice Chair of their CTFC Board, and last year I was appointed to the California Commission on the StatUS of Women and Girls, the first enrolled Member of a federally recognized tribe to be appointed on the Commission. The California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls works in culturally inclusive manner to promote equality and justice for all women and girls by advocating on the behalf with the Governor, the Legislature, and other public policymakers, and by educating the public in the areas of economic equity, including educational equity, access to health care, including reproductive choice, violence against women, and other key issues identified by the Commission. In 2021, the Commission received 7.9 million for a woman's Recovery Response. 5 million went to grants that were issued to organizations to support immediate needs for women and girls. Under the 21-22 funding cycle, the Kichai Nor Nonprofit Corporation, which supports programs and services for Europe tribal Members use grant funds to develop a micro grant project to improve economic opportunity and financial security for Europe women and girls throughout Humboldt County and Del Norte County. We also supported the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women in their creation of two guaranteed Income pilot programs, one of which included direct cash assistance to Native Americans, indigenous survivors of domestic violence. The Sacramento Native American Health center will be awarded funding for their continued work in providing accessible and affordable quality care, including medical, dental and behavioral health. Funds will also support the SWEET Project, which will promote economic recovery for up to 150 members of the target population by providing housing, utility, transportation and documentation assistance. The Commission invested funds in women's specific research to examine the economic impact of COVID-19 on California's Women and Girls, which produced the California Blueprint for women's pandemic economic recovery. The Blueprint centers the economic needs of women and girls as a critical to the state's economic recovery. It adopts for the first time a gendered lens on the state economy, recognizing women as key drivers of industry and key workforce participants. The research found that women of color were the first to lose their jobs and last to regain them, causing long term financial stress to their households. For the 2023-2024 sessions, the Commission is supporting AB 273. This proposal seeks to build on past efforts by requiring notification of family members, court appointed counsel, tribes and tribal representatives, and the court of jurisdiction when a child or non minor dependent is missing and requiring collaborative efforts and due diligence by county social workers, probation officers, courts and other supportive adults to locate, place and stabilize children and youth when they return for the 2021 session. Also, we are supporting AB 2022, which required the removal of the S word from all the geographic and place names in the State of California, and establish a process for the California Advisory Committee on Geographic Names to review and revise offensive names in the State of California. The Commission's budget ask for the 20232024 session builds on our request from previous years to elevate California's women and girls and to support our existing efforts, 7.9 million to continue to support the Women's Recovery Response Program and 500,000 to study the pandemic recovery needs of California's Native American women, disabled women and LGBTQ women and other marginalized groups who too often remain underrepresented and unseen. You hear all this, but we are all trying to work this together, but we must do more, and my experience as a tribal councilwoman, I know and appreciate and cooperate the cooperation we have that Pichanga has built with our local law enforcement. But that relationship was built over 25 years, mostly because we were forced to work together around gaming issue issues. That is not the case for most tribes in the state. Tensions with local law enforcement, which are steeped in history, are a reality that must be addressed. On top of that, we also have jurisdictional complexities and confusion because California is a public law 280 state. As someone who served in the local government, Chairman Ramos, you know all too well that most local governments, they don't understand Public Law 280. I wanted to make a few policy suggestions to the Committee for consideration, please. First, we must provide more funding and resources to support tribal and local law enforcement collaboration on missing, murdered, and Indigenous persons. Law enforcement is strained. The funding from AB 3099 and from the government budget is helpful, but is not enough for a state as large as California that spans urban cities and rural communities. We should also consider that if there is a public health aspect of this crisis, that that must also be addressed. Second, consider establishing an MMIP liaison position at the California Department of Justice to help tribes, family members and law enforcement navigate these issues that are often complex and rife with past historical trauma and distrust. Washington State and Colorado have both established similar positions in the past year. Third, the Committee should consider ways to bring stakeholders together to identify and share best practices when it comes to the missing murdered Indigenous persons. Perhaps the Committee should consider legislation to create a state chartered task force of stakeholders to examine these issues. Washington and Arizona both have set up such task force forces. Or perhaps the Committee can sponsor legislation to allocate funding to study best practices. I hope that this hearing will help shape policy to bring justice for families, for all these tribal families, and most of all, all the victims. On behalf of the Commission, I want to thank you for your time today.

Thank you so much for that and for those suggestions moving forward. More funding and collaboration that's there. We need to do more. We're still trying to catch up with the lack of 170 years of neglect from the state, so we're continuing to work on those areas that are there. Our next speaker is going to be Merri Lopez Keifer, Director of the Office of Native American affairs from the Office of Attorney General Rob Bonta's Office. Ms. Kiefer?

Okay, I think we're still in the morning. We're almost in the afternoon. Just wanted to say thank you, Chairman Ramos and the Honorable Members of the Select Committee on Native American affairs for inviting me to speak today on the state's efforts in addressing the missing murdered Indigenous persons crisis. My name is Mary Lopez Keefer, and I am the Director of the Office of Native American affairs at the Office of the Attorney General Rob Bonta, California Department of Justice. The Office, affectionately known as ONA, was established in the Department of Justice in the year 2000 to support the rights of tribal citizens and governments and to help protect the public safety of tribal communities. Attorney General Bonta is committed to enhancing and improving public safety on and off tribal lands. He and the entire Department of Justice stand with California tribes and Native people in bringing an end to this injustice through both awareness and action. I'll begin today by first providing some background on what we know about the MMIP crisis at a national level, a brief snapshot of California's Native American population, and then a brief summary of the Assembly Bill 3099 that was passed in 2020 and funded in 2021, providing three specific tasks mandated to Department of Justice and our current efforts in bringing awareness and action addressing the crisis. For decades, Native American and Alaskan Native communities have struggled with high rates of assault, abduction, and murder of women. Community advocates describe the crisis as a legacy of generations of government policies, including forced removal, land seizures, and violence inflicted on Native peoples. You've heard multiple statistics shared with you today. These were not. When remains are found, American Indian and Alaskan Native women are 135% more likely to be listed as unidentified cases than women of other races, and cases of murdered and missing Indigenous women are seven times less likely to be solved than any other demographic. California is home to one of the largest populations of American Indian Alaskan Native people. According to the 2021 US Census Bureau, there are an estimated 1.1 million American Indian Alaskan Natives in California, accounting for approximately 2.9% of the state's population. The top five counties with the most American Indian Alaskan Native persons are Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange counties. In addition, California is home to approximately 171 California Native American tribes, consisting of 109 federally recognized tribes and approximately 62 non federally recognized tribes, and a little over 100 Indian reservations and rancherias that neighbor 34 of our 58 county jurisdictions. MMIP impacts all of California's tribal communities. Signed into law on September 25, 2020, California Native American Day AB 3099 created the Tribal Assistance Program within the Department of Justice's Office of Native American affairs, my office, and mandated the DOJ with three specific tasks. Task one was to provide technical assistance regarding policing and criminal investigations on Indian lands consistent with Public Law 280. You've heard considerable amount of testimony today on Public Law 280. However, today's testimony from my office was directed towards MMIP. Task two is to conduct a study to determine how to increase state criminal justice protective and investigative resources for reporting and identifying missing Native Americans in California. Task three was to submit a report to the Legislature based on the findings of the study described in task two by the end of fiscal year 2024-25. This report must include recommendations to the Legislature and proposed legislation to improve the reporting and identification of missing Native Americans, an examination of data regarding current missing and murdered Native American persons in California, and the identification of potential barriers to providing state resources needed to address these issues. The Department of Justice is executing all three tasks and are on track to deliver the report on time to the Legislature. Attorney General Bonta continues to work in collaboration and coordination with our local, state, tribal, federal justice partners, and most importantly, with the survivors and families impacted by loved ones who have gone missing and or who have been murdered.

Again, it's awareness and action that will help bring an end to the crisis. Department of Justice is actively engaging with California Tribal leaders on how we can help bring awareness to what is occurring within the Native communities and how we and all of our partners in justice can take action to end the crisis to our communities. A few weeks ago, Attorney General Banta initiated the first of four regional events called Missing in California Indian Country.

These events, the first of their kind in the nation, are occurring in California Indian country and are being developed in collaboration and partnership with the tribes and tribal communities of the specific regions in order to be responsive to the needs of the tribal communities in each region. There are three key law enforcement components that will be present at each regional event.

Tribal people will be provided the opportunity to report a person missing no matter how long they've been missing, receive an update, or provide new information on an active missing person case, and they have the opportunity to provide a DNA sample to be included in our Unidentified Persons and Remains Database. This would allow closure for a family who has been mourning if their loved one is in that database. The first event was held in Northern California at the Blue Lake Rancheria on April 222023.

It was held in collaboration with all 28 of the tribes in the Northern region, and our law enforcement partners were the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, the Yurok Tribal Police Department and the Hoopa Valley Tribal Police Department. We'll be announcing the next three events shortly. However, we have identified our partners for the Southern Region to be Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians led by Chairman. Isaiah Vivanco. Excuse me.

In addition, our MMIP research team, being led by Dr. Blythe George, will be engaging with the Native community through listening sessions, interviews, and an online tribal community survey. Dr. Blythe George is a proud Member of the Yurok Tribe and an assistant Professor at the University of California at Merced.

These qualitative data efforts seek to gather invaluable information directly from community Members to help us build a more complete understanding of the experiences, perspectives, and needs of the communities, as well as provide the communities a voice in the research process and the opportunity to shape the direction of future initiatives.

We've also been diligently enhancing current educational and informational resources, including updating our Native American Marcy's Law Card, which is victims' rights card, and updating our website to provide more information to tribal community leaders, tribal governments, law enforcement partners, District Attorney's offices, superior courts of California, tribal courts about the availability of culturally informed tribal victim service providers throughout the State of California. And we are currently developing a digital publication entitled Missing California a frequently asked Question digital resource for Native American tribes and people.

It will be a resource for tribes and tribal people on what to do and what to expect if a tribal person goes missing on or off tribal lands. Attorney General Bonta also issued information bulletins. Those are direct communications with law enforcement partners addressing the applicability of California's criminal trespass Law on tribal lands and also providing guidance to our justice partners on the enforceability of tribal court protection orders. You heard testimony on that as well today.

And under the Violence Against Women act, tribal court protective orders are to be enforced by tribal law enforcement, regardless of whether they're in the federal or state database. Lastly, Attorney General Bonta also supported the passage and signing of the Feather Alert. The alert system may only be activated when Indigenous people who have been reported missing under explained or suspicious circumstances, and it requires local law enforcement to coordinate with available tribal resources.

Together with all of our partners in Justice, Attorney General Bonta and the California Department of Justice will help bring an end to the MMIP crisis in California. We cannot do it alone. We need partnership. The California Department of Justice remains committed to the safety and well being of tribal people and their communities. We are committed to doing our part to stand up for all the people in our state. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony and bringing us up to speed on where the Attorney General is at and the work that's continuing to be done by the Attorney General's Office. Our next speaker will be Samantha Thornsberry, program Director from the Kuya Consortium.

Chairman, Samantha Thornsberry, Cahuilla Band of Indians. So, my name is Samantha Thornsbury. I'm an enrolled Cahuilla member. I'm also newly seated on the Tribal Council in January. It's my second term. But more importantly, I'm here today to talk to you about our experiences and my experience as an advocate, as well as the program Director for the CuyA Consortium, which is our tribal victim advocacy Program.

So the Cahuilla Consortium is comprised of four Southern California tribes, the Cahuilla Band of Indians, the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Torres Martinez Band of Desert Cahuilla Indians, and the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Campagno Indians. The Cahuilla Consortium provides advocacy services to our consortium tribal Members, other Native Americans and nonnatives who reside in our service area, which we've defined as Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties. We've been providing advocacy to those victimized by domestic violence sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking.

Since 2010 and recently we've expanded to offer services to victims of crime. We are 100% federally grant funded. We have projects awarded through the Office for Victims of Crime and HHS Family Violence Prevention Services Act. I've been invited here today to discuss some of the realities that the Cahuilla Consortium has experienced regarding human trafficking and the MMIP epidemic. The reality of what is happening right now regarding MMIW and MMIP cases is that we don't always recognize or understand the situation upon first encounter.

There is often an intersectionality of crimes or victimizations that make these cases very complex. Often cases become confused or misinterpreted from the very beginning, which costs precious time and can have devastating impacts on the outcome. Several years ago, I was asked around, I think 2015, I was asked if I had ever assisted or provided advocacy to a survivor of human trafficking. My response at the time was no. This bothered me because it just didn't make sense in my mind.

Upon reflection and analysis of our program data, I realized I had provided advocacy to survivors who had been trafficked, who had been taken away from their homes and families against their will, who had been missing but not reported to such to law enforcement. I just had not coded the case as such because initially the hotline caller had said that she was a victim of domestic violence. Survivors who call our hotline will often indicate that they need help due to fleeing a domestic violence incident.

We start working with the most basic approach, safety and shelter, medical assistance, food, clothing, a restraining order, all immediate and emergent needs. Moving from the emergent needs into transitional needs like housing, therapy, employment, obtaining other resources. Whatever their survivor identifies as a need, this becomes the focus. While all of this is occurring, the advocate and the survivor are getting to know one another, developing a rapport, working on trust, interacting in a manner that encompasses more than a client advocate, all business relationship.

The survivor is provided support that allows them the time and space to find their voice again, to be heard, to be believed. This could take weeks, months, and even years. This is where the advocate learns that the survivor was kidnapped as a 19 year old, was isolated away from family and friends, was told that if she tried to leave, that her family that lived less than 2 miles away would all be killed in a drive by shooting or would die in a house fire.

This is where the advocate realizes that the survivor, after years of sexual abuse, physical abuse, including selling illicit photos and sextortion and other abuses from persons in the home of the perpetrator's extended family, did not or could not vocalize all that she had survived initially when she contacted help, which turned out to be a lot more than domestic violence. This 19 year old, escaping at the age of 26, was an MMIW survivor.

Within the past year, we've identified several other cases that, upon intake, were coded as domestic violence cases, and again, after some time, relationship building and creating a safe and nonjudgmental space. Survivors revealed date rape, stalking, survival, sex, labor trafficking, kidnapping, and a whole host of other crimes and victimizations.

What's still lacking is the understanding of the true complexity of these types of victimizations from every perspective, leadership to service providers to the tribal community, to the survivors families, and most importantly, the survivor, and understanding how to communicate these complexities to these perspectives in a manner that everyone understands, which is critical to first, responding second, providing support and direct services to a survivor, the survivor's family, and the tribal community, and last, to addressing the heart of the problem and its intersectionality and complexity.

I've heard community members say, why can't the tribal council get more information from the Sheriff's Department or law Enforcement say, why won't the tribal community members provide information to investigators on what they might know? Or from the survivor family Members who say, why can't the investigators tell us more about where the investigation is? Or victim advocates who say, I don't know how to help this person because all they're requesting is financial assistance to pay this month's rent.

I want to mention that while we, meaning advocates, want to know how to help a survivor, it's essential to understand the difficulty, and often initially, for survivors to verbalize what they've been through, to actually find the words to articulate what their needs might be, which may take time, trust building, a variety of supports like therapy, a safe space, safety advocacy consider the fact that many survivors hesitate from sharing what they've been through so as not to hurt their family members, to not victimize their parents or loved ones who would be traumatized to hear accounts of rape, torture, starvation, forced sex, labor, work, and worse.

Several years ago, I was asked why more survivors do not report their victimizations to law enforcement or sometimes to anyone. This is an important point to consider. As often with crimes involving physical assault or violence, there is an escalation of violence, as illustrated in the domestic violence power and control will or the cycle of abuse. Survivors stories often start with illustrations of controlling behavior, forced isolation from family and friends, emotional and verbal abuse, then physical violence.

It's not a matter of if, it's when physical violence occurs. I bring this up because if intervention were to occur at the beginning of the cycle instead of after first incidents of violence, would the data on MMIW and MMIP today look different? With everything that's been discussed today, we have clearly identified some of the reasons why early reporting does not happen, the stigma that's attached to our most vulnerable, and how they may be viewed.

She was on drugs, oh he was homeless zero, she's a runaway we must support the ongoing and continual training and develop educational tools needed that assist us in addressing the historical lack of trust and rapport building between survivors and service providers, law enforcement, the courts, even leadership. As too often our protocols, policies and procedures, and even budgets don't allow time and space to build these connections.

Early intervention and prevention will focus our energies where they should be on the prevention of violence perpetrated on our people instead of the aftermath.

As we enter a dialogue with one another and with the Governor about specific needs in our efforts to prevent MMIW MMIP, let's be sure to focus on programming and services that provide resources that include mental health supports, social services, legal assistance, emergency sheltering and transitional housing programs, rapport and trust building training and tools that will foster collaboration with our county and state counterparts, especially law enforcement.

Let's all work to identify the funding and service gaps and needs in each region of California and then work to make sure funding is in place to allow again the time and space needed to advocate, provide justice, and to hold perpetrators accountable.

The Cahuilla Consortium is working on an MMIW MMIP along with our collaborators like Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition, on a MMIW MMIP toolkit that we hope to develop into a website that has an application base that can put out for information on education on every level, from community Members to survivors to stakeholders to tribal leadership.

Again, the emphasis is that we all must become the voice for those who have been forever silenced, despite how painful families and communities, advocates and anyone connected to a family who has lost someone to this epidemic is finding their voice and the strength to speak out about what has happened and is happening to their family, their tribal community Members and our Native people.

I'm grateful to all the tribal leaders, the tribal organizations Assembly Member Ramos, the legislators that are here today in this Committee, and many others for putting forth solution oriented legislation that shines a spotlight on the issue of equity, issues of safety, lack of resources, and the needs of the tribal communities.

From AB 1314, the Feather Alert to AB 273, protecting and locating children missing from foster care, to AB 44, tribal public safety, the creation of the California Missing and Rooted Indigenous People grant program and many other efforts. This is movement in the right direction. This work supports the examination of issues stemming from colonization that for too long created environments in which Native citizens, our youth, our LGBTQ two spirit, our men and boys, our elders, and especially our Native women and girls have been made vulnerable.

I want to say to all of you doing this work within and for my people, I see you. I am grateful to you for working diligently to ensure that my life, the life of my nieces, my aunties, my sisters, my cousins matter, that we are not invisible. With that, I close with just thank you, Achima.

Thank you for that enlightening testimony that talks about underlying issues also and brings also full circle the victim's service. Being able to have training to identify what potentially could lead to an MMIW or someone that went through it, that's not reaching out. And I also do wanted to. You mentioned that the funding you receive is 100% federal funding for victims rights services. And I know the State of California provides funding also.

So maybe reaching out to my colleagues, when we hear those in the budget for victims' rights services, maybe we could chime in, including tribal communities involved in that. Thank you for that. Our last speaker will be April McGill, Director of Community Partnerships and projects from the California Consortium of Urban Indian Health and a Member of the Resistance, Yuki resistance, Yuki Resistance.

Ramos is part of that Yahweh. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ramos, for bringing us here again another year, and thank you, Mary, for inviting me to be on this panel. I just want to thank everyone who has shared and spoke today. My heart is heavy. My heart is heavy for my people in Round Valley. So I want to just acknowledge my family and our people and our leaders who are on the ground trying to help our family in this crisis that's happening right now.

The work that I do for CCUIH on the Red Woman Rising is really policy advocacy work, and it's direct service with survivors and finding ways to make sure that their voices are heard on a state and federal level. And so one of the things that we've done at CCUIH is really work diligently with our DV networks, such as Stronghearted Native Women's Coalition and Restorative justice, and to name a few.

But our work is really about working with leaders to change policy, both with our tribal leaders and in our urban communities. We represent 10 of our urban Indian health organizations in California, so we know that there's a lot of our tribal Members who are using services in our urban communities. So we want to make sure that we're first and foremost acknowledging the root cause, which is the history of California, and looking at how these laws were put in place to kill off our Indian people.

Thinking about the boarding school system and how we have our elders today who are still suffering from the effects of boarding school. My grandmother was in Sherman boarding school, so I'm a granddaughter of a boarding school survivor. My grandmother was also Yuki, so she was one of the last Yuki speakers of Round Valley. And I know that we have this really violent history in Round Valley, and that violence continues today.

And so when we acknowledge those root causes, we must look at why is this happening in our tribal communities? Why is it happening in our urban communities? I want to think about focusing on culturally specific services for our people. We know what is best for our people, and we know our communities best. So we need folks to continue to work with us on how we provide better services. We need to expand and prioritize those services so that there are more.

Because what's happening, again, like I said, is we have tribal Members coming to urban communities that need services. I want to read a quote from one of our DV survivors who says, "I was really trying to get out of this DV situation, but yet I felt like there was just nothing out there meaning services there for me. And I was just so mad because I'm like, this is why it's so hard for women to walk away.

This is why it's easier for me to just stay in this abusive relationship because at least I know I have a place to sleep". So, we need to make sure that we have more safe homes for our people, safe places for them to be. When we think about our reservations, we're purposely isolated on reservations, and we're purposely isolated from services. But we also need to confront what the real issues are, which is a barrier, which is the systematic challenges of data collection.

We need to make sure that we're collecting that data and that it's both our urban and our tribal. I think it's also important. I was out front earlier today, and I grabbed this agenda, and it was on the mental health crisis, and it made me think about our crisis because we are normalizing violence that's happening in our communities, and we need to stop normalizing this violence and prioritize behavioral health services.

Prioritize mental health services for American Indian people because we are suffering from PTSD, we're suffering from anxiety, because of trafficking, because of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Our people are not getting the services they need. And one of the things that Sakui acknowledges is that our people need to be able to get services anywhere in any tribal community, any urban community. They should be able to because they are at a level of poverty, and they may be on Medi-Cal.

But how do we get that service to be billable in all avenues, whether it be tribal, whether it be urban? We also must acknowledge that a lot of times our families who are experiencing this violence, we have these small communities. So, we have families who have aunties that work at the clinic and cousins that work in different places.

And there's a confidentiality situation that will limit our people from going and getting service, but also knowing that they may feel safer if they get services in an urban community. So how do we help our families from that? There's also this stigma, and thank you for speaking to that, because it is so true that there's a stigma that our women, if they have challenges with drug addiction or they have challenges with CPS and their children, there's a stigma that they're not worthy.

There's a stigma that they are broken and that they deserve this type of violence in their life. Just recently, in February in Sonoma County, a Karuk woman was raped, and she was arrested after she reported the rape. And it just goes to continue to show you that we need more law enforcement, social workers, teachers, and judges that are trained in MMIP and cultural competency around our native woman.

This woman had to sit in a cell next to her perpetrator while he cussed her out, yelling words at her after she had been raped. This situation is another example of why our women do not come forward and why they live in fear and why they carry this violence.

We need to invest in these partnerships and trainings and make sure that our tribes are meeting regularly, that our tribal leaders are coming together to discuss what is happening on our reservations and how do they support each other, and how do we support our people that are in the urban communities as well. I also think it's important to value the knowledge, native knowledge, and our responses to how we respond to what's happening to our people.

Our traditional knowledge keepers, a lot of our survivors, are asking for traditional healing services. So as advocates, we have to bring in these traditional people to pray and take care of our people. But if we want to go back to another systematic challenge, how do we make the value of that traditional person be the same value as a practitioner or a clinical person? How do we pay them and compensate them and make that service billable?

Instead of having third party funding support those services that tribes and urbans are forced to provide, we need to align policy and funding with the needs of our survivors and needing more native investigators for all of our tribes, and then partnering with the DOJ and making sure that we're able to share what's happening in our communities.

I also think it's really important when we think about our youth, about restorative justice teachings to our youth, but also to our families, and thinking about how are we teaching our children to solve problems, how are we showing them there's these traditional healing practices? Going backwards. I feel like with this crisis right now, we're going backwards. I've been here several times to testify, and I feel like the number just keeps increasing for our people. So how do we stop that?

And I think that this is where we really need to come together, and we really need to understand that until we address the root causes of what's happened to our people, then we're not going to stop this type of violence. I want to acknowledge, before I end Natasha Steele, who was my niece, and she drowned in Del Norte county in 2019. Her death was labeled a drowning, but we don't believe that it was a drowning, as it happened at 03:00 in the morning.

I also want to acknowledge my brother, Calvin All McGill, who was also murdered in 2021 in Sonoma county, and nothing has been done about his case. And I just want to continue to pray for and send my condolences to our families who are really feeling this in Round Valley. And just thank you, Assemblyman Ramos, again, for continuing to bring this subject as a priority in your work.

Yawa, thank you.

So, you know, our hearts go out to you and Round Valley tribal people for what it has, what you've been going through and continue to go through. We continue to elevate the awareness here in the state Capitol, and we will be out there tomorrow night having a vigil to bring attention to others in the State of California, that this is an issue that's not going away. This is an issue that the state needs to be able to bring resources to.

And so we'll be out there, I think, 630 to 830 with the lighting of the Capitol Dome. But at this time, I do want to offer Catalina Chacon an opportunity to have any closing statements, as it seems now that construction has slowed down a little bit, if you would like.

I appreciate that. I just wanted to say the Commission is doing everything they can, and I appreciate you allowing me to have a voice today. And I wear two hats when I come in here, because not only am I sitting as a Commissioner, I'm also a native woman and a proud Member of the Pachanga band. So, I mean, hearing all these stories today, she mentioned her heart is heavy. I think all the hearts in here.

I appreciate everyone being here today, especially all the women and their voices. We all carry a lot of hats in here. I could hear that from everyone's statement today. We come in here not just as mothers and sisters and grandmothers, but as tribal leaders, and we probably sit on as many committees as we can because we're trying to make a difference for our people. So I just want to say thank you. I was trying to talk really fast, trying to get through that.

That was hard for all the women that did it, and it's very hard. But thank you for giving me that extra minutes. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you so much. And we'll open up any questions from the dais if there's any. I want to thank all the panel for coming forward today addressing all the issues with the complexities and trying to educate the Legislature on the complexities of Public Law 280. And some Members understand that maybe some Members is the first time they're hearing about Public Law 280.

But as Indian people and growing up on the reservation, ultimately tribal Chairman, we've dealt with Public Law 280, and then we moved from a point to be able to have MOUs with local law enforcement, but that's not afforded to the majority of the California, Indian people in the State of California who still have to rely on the fiduciary responsibility of the State of California with Public Law 280, with that responsibility to provide public safety on Indian reservations, where many jurisdictions don't even acknowledge that they have the fiduciary responsibility to move forward.

So there is gaps that we need to address. AB 44, trying to deal with the Kletz component of it and tribal policing abilities still needs to be able to have more discussion here in the state Legislature on Public Law 280. And those gaps that need to be identified and also being able to attest to the tribal court system and the state court system, trying to merge those together. So enforceability would be there.

And I think one of the speakers talked about the ability to hold nontribal Members accountable for acts being perpetrated on Indian reservations, tribal communities where they detain a person but have to wait for local law enforcement to show up and in some cases could take an amount of time getting there.

So, these are complexities that we still see and ultimately leading to tribes declaring a State of emergency and being able to dive deeper into that of what is expected from a tribal community when they declare an emergency from the State of California to ensure that everybody's on the same page.

Certainly, seeing the State of California now in the top five of all states in the nation of unsolved and unresolved murders cases here in the State of California is something that should be alarming to all, to all that's out there. And someone brought up how Washington state has moved forward again with liaisons and those things. So, it's something to look at in moving forward.

These are complex issues, but as Chairman Joe James mentioned, these are complex issues that have plagued our people from time immemorial, from the treatment towards our people and our women. We move forward on getting rid of the S word, but it's that historical trauma mentality that still plays out today. And I think Judge Abby, or someone mentioned that these aren't just historical traumas. They're traumas that are present day traumas that are still being inflicted upon our people and our women.

That needs to be able to be addressed. And again, anywhere else, if this was happening, there would be task force assembled. There would be issues moving forward of why it's going on. To have two fatalities within a tribal community in three weeks is a problem.

To see these areas continuing to have to come to a point to where the voices are being elevated within a hearing in the State of California so that those in the room get educated on the issues that we've been talking about for years. But finally, we have a voice within the hearing rooms to be able to address these issues and move them forward. We heard clearly the need to move forward on Red Ribbon component that would address funding.

It would address where we're headed, but to be able to have some more dialogue on it so that we have all people being able to have a voice inside that piece of legislation. Moving forward. We've hear clearly of my colleagues and myself on the complexities of public Law 280 and looking back and hearing from those, as far as looking at AB 44 in its original language, moving forward in some of those components that are there.

This is not meant to solve all the issues, but it's meant to elevate the issues that still plague our people and to continue to move forward in one accord as a state Legislature that now has been educated on the issues that plague our people. It's where do we go now? Moving forward. Public Law 280, victims rights services, right tribal court system and the protection that's there.

And so we'll continue to work with our colleagues on these issues, but we also will call out to Indian country, Indian country, to make sure that that voice is being resonated. We're going to be out here tomorrow lighting the Capitol up Red as the chair of rules were able to do that to bring attention and awareness to our issues. But we're calling out on all tribal communities, federally recognized tribe, tribal governments, to start bringing awareness around these issues.

These issues of MMIW, the issues of victim services, the issues of ICWA, the issues of foster care. These are issues that have plagued our people. It's time that we unify around these issues and let our voices be heard. I want to thank each and every one of you for participating today.

And this is just the beginning of several hearings that we will conduct while we're in the state Legislature to bring awareness around our people in hopes of unifying one voice that California Indian people are here, and these issues won't be tolerated anymore. And most importantly, the reason and the passion that we move forward is because of our ancestors and elders that are still crying out from the grounds in the State of California. Tell them truly who we are.

Tell them truly about the historical trauma and the present day trauma that still is inflicting our people. Thank you so much. This meeting is adjourned.

We want to get a group, a.

Group picture of all the panelists, if.

They're still here, if you could come.

Up here, or everybody here. We want to get a group picture. Of everybody in the room.

If you want to come up here to the dais, we'll get a picture quickly. Yeah. That means you, if you're hearing me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. If you could come up here and we'll get a group picture. Yeah, everyone, come on. Get a group picture. Come on up. Everyone, come on up. We'll get a group picture. Eduardo Avelino, jump in there. Yeah. What happens? Yeah. One job. Really? Hey, man, thanks for being here. Jeremy. Everybody, come on up. Come on up.

You could come up here, too, on the DAIS, the sergeant's old test.

Share it?

Share it.

Yeah, one picture. Yeah, one picture. Share with. Is everybody in it that wants to be in it? Come on. Come on. Chairman James. Hold on. Here we go. This is Janet Gilbert, Chairman, Northport. Coming on up here. Soon they'll be sitting in these chairs.

Ready? We have one. Someone looking. Okay, ready? Right here. Ready? 1 - 2 - 3. And let me get one more right here. Again. Okay, right here. Ready? 1 - 2 - 3.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Everybody good.

Thank you.