Assembly Select Committee on Native American Affairs

All right, we're going to be able to call the Select Committee on Native American affairs to order. And before we start, we're going to offer a traditional Kuya verse song. I want to thank everybody for being here. I know we got an echo.

So the song I sang was a song that was put to us by taught to us by Mr. Robert Levi. And outside this room in the hallway is a picture of bird singers from Southern California. And I just wanted to bring attention to that because that was no small beat in trying to get that accomplished.

So now we have pictures of our people on the outside of this hearing room on the wall that's out there. That's something to be celebrated. We're going to go through a series of panels today and welcoming. This is the first Select Committee hearing here of the year 2025 in the session two year session.

And we're going to go over topics of of the different panels of missing missing and murdered indigenous person experience. We'll have chairperson speak on that panel. We also will talk about in panel two, exploitation and trafficking in a PL 280 state. And then on panel three we have State of California's efforts and responses to MMIP.

We also want to acknowledge the land that we're on, the Miwok Nisenan people where this capital is built on and the land of the people that reside here. So we want to recognize them as. Now we'll move to our first panel and when I call your names, you could come sit around the tables.

Here we have Chairperson Antoinette Del Rio from the California Valley of Miwok Indians. Chairperson Cheyenne Stone Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley. Chairperson Charles Martin Morongo Band of Mission Indians. Before we get started, I do want to acknowledge our Members that are here with us.

Assemblymember Sharon Quirk Silva, Assembly Member Harabedian, Assembly Member Garcia and Assemblymember Rogers. I'm not sure if you have any comments or any that you would have opening comments.

Thank you. Mr. Chair just would like to thank you for your leadership and continued efforts on this issue. And the highlight of my day is always listening to your voice whenever you do sing. And I do want to just say that you doing that is incredibly special for all of us. So thank you for this hearing.

Thank you for all that you do and appreciate everyone being here.

Also I want. To appreciate you Mr. Ramos, all of the attendees and this is now a good amount of time that you've been able to lead and educate us because it is about education, not only for the Members, but for the public.

And some of the major initiatives you've brought forward, I've been not only proud to support, but like I said, whether it's working with the UCS and the CSUs to make sure there's honoring all of the all of the items that they have and have not given back, but also understanding what's happening in the community related to the taking of women and so much more.

Your leading this really has elevated this at the State Capitol since I've been here. And I'm proud to be asked to be on the Select Committee. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Assembly Member Garcia

Likewise. Thank you, Chair Ramos. It's an honor to serve on the Select Committee and I look forward to learning about all the issues and learning from all our panelists today. Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for each of you being here today and being able to be part of this hearing here today. As now we'll dive into panel one starting first with Chairperson Antoinette Del Rio.

I love how you started first. Thank you. First and foremost, it is an honor for our tribe to be able to be here, which is California Valley Miwok Tribe as the chairperson.

Bringing and understanding what MMIP is to not just our community but others has been a huge task because I also wear the hat as the Indian Ed Director for two different counties of Amador and El Dorado County. And a lot of times people don't even know what that is.

And that's sad, especially in our education systems that that they don't know and that I'm also having to not educate the parents, the community, but also our educators on it. And we're only one person, right? And it takes a full team in order to be able to do that.

For our tribe in particular, it has been a long battle of our voices not being able to be heard at tables such like this. Instead we are spectators and listening and having posters or doing what we can to bring light.

It would be nice that I know what those tribes are going through that don't are still not at this table. Now recently we are here and we're not going anywhere.

We'll continue to fight and continue to have our voices be heard, especially with like Assemblymember Ramos being as Native American and making sure that our voices are heard not just for federally recognized tribes, but tribes in General. Like those are tribes that need their voices to be heard.

And that's where it's hard and that's where it hurts us. As far as our tribe goes is because we know what those are. We know that there are times where people wish that they can be in rooms. They have people that are murdered and missing, but they can't share it. They don't have a platform to share it.

So how can we make sure that we're also including and or protecting those types, types of tribal leaders for our tribe? I will state that now our tribe can continue to grow.

We can grow with getting programs now that we're able to get our resources, hopefully very soon we can develop programs to make sure that we educate, that we get those words out for our people that are murdered and missing.

We have several of them back in the early 1960s that cold cases never been said, you know, so there's Sally Wilson. That is one that we want to make sure that we emphasize as far as our people, we have Angel Baby Espinosa, we have Angel Mae, Jeff, we have Joseph Brooks.

Those are many names that I will also speak on tonight, but they have not been said in certain platforms. So why, why can't we continue to move this forward? Forward. But not only ourselves, but like I stated, we want to support our neighboring tribes, our neighboring federally and non federally recognized tribes.

And then I also did state as the education component, we want to make sure that we are educating ourselves in these types of platforms as well as educating those around us.

Thank you so much for that. Next we'll move to chairperson Cheyenne Stone Big Pine Paiute Tribe of Owens Valley.

Thank you. So combating the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people in California is a huge story to tell. Many of us have a lot of things to say. So today I'm going to tell you a story of our survival, sovereignty and sacred responsibility from Payahunadu, which is known as the Owens Valley.

For some historical context, this is a legacy of violence and forced removal. On July 11, 1863, one of the darkest chapters in California history unfolded in the Owens Valley. Following orders from Captain Moses Mclaughlin, 906 Paiute men, women and children were forcibly marched over 200 miles from Paihuanadu to the San Sebastian Indian Reservation near Fort Tejon.

Many were misled to believe they were gathering for a feast. Instead, they faced starvation, violence and fortune. Forced relocation. By the time the March concluded, Only 150 individuals arrived. Many had died, disappeared or were killed along the way. This forced exodus was not an accident of war.

It was a deliberate removal to clear land and water for incoming settlers, ranchers and government expansion. Bones Valley was stripped from the Paiute people so that others could claim the resources of the region. Some survivors eventually returned, but many families were permanently displaced.

My great grandfather Tom Stone, passed down the story of his grandfather Panativity, who was taken from his homeland alongside his son. They were among the captives of Inyo's forced march. Their survival and the generations that followed are a direct result of Indigenous resilience and the refusal to disappear. These historical traumas are not relics.

They shape the lived experience of Native American communities today. The Present Day Crisis for MMIP In California today, the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people continues that legacy of elimination and injustice. Indigenous women, men, and children remain unreasonably vulnerable to violence, disappearance, and death.

Across the State of California, tribal communities continue to grieve without answers, while state and federal systems often fail to respond with the urgency, resources, and culture sensitivity that the issue demands. In 2023, during a 69.7 million Caltrans highway expansion project on US Highway 395, the Paiute Tribes of Pai Hinatu warned of potential sacred burials along the route.

Our concerns were not adequately addressed. This construction proceeded. 30 human skeletons were unearthed along with cultural items including glass beads, abalone shells, arrowheads, broken grinding rock stones, evidence of a once thriving culture and spiritual presence.

Archaeological assessments later reported a total minimum Number of individuals of 61 and an estimated 875 individual human remains based on specimen counts across multiple excavation sites. These findings spanned from isolated remains to formal burial cranes, underscoring the deep and devastating impact of disturbing ancestral lands without adequate tribal consultation.

These events are painful and a reminder that California still lacks the infrastructure and policy enforcement necessary to protect Indigenous remains, honor tribal sovereignty, and prevent future desecrations. So let's move forward. Where must we go from here? California must respond with decisive and sustained action to address the MMIP crisis.

This includes dedicated funding for forensic laboratories to identify remains and reunite families with their loved ones legally mandated and well funded tribal consultation for all infrastructure projects that may impact cultural or burial sites.

Culturally informed victim services investigate investigative support and law enforcement training specific to tribal communities, public accountability and transparency in how state agencies handle discovered remains of MMIP cases. Assemblymember James Ramos, the first Native American elected to the California State Legislature, has been a champion for tribal rights visibility and MIP policy reform.

His leadership is helping shift the conversation toward action. However, legislation must be supported by substantial budget appropriations to empower tribes to protect our people and our heritage. So, to conclude, our presence is our power.

Inyo County is vast in landscape with rich Indigenous history stands as both a site of historic trauma and and a beacon of culture, endurance. Where the US army once sought to forcefully remove the Paiute people, we remain. Our continued presence is not only survival, it is sovereignty.

The stories of our ancestors, like pontifice, are not just distant memories. They are the foundation for which strength we carry. And they must never be buried again by inaction or silence. Addressing the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people is not solely about recovering those we have lost.

It's about transforming the systems that we continue to overlook, marginalize and endanger Native lives. It is about ensuring that the pain of our past becomes the catalyst for a just and protected future. We urge California's leadership to act with intention, urgency and respect. Justice must be more than a statement. It must become policy, investment and accountability.

And to every tribal citizen, advocate and ally, know your elected officials. Engage them, hold them to the highest standard. For me, my US congressional district is 3. With the representative Kevin Kiley, California California State Senate district 4 Senator Marie Alvado Gil and California State Assembly District 8 Assembly Member David Tangipa. We cannot wait for justice.

It must begin with us. Let our voices be heard in every chamber and across every district. Let us rise not only in remembrance, but in resolve to honor our ancestors and the spirits that are no longer here with us.

Thank you for your testimony. As now we'll move to Chairperson Charles Martin of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians Committee Members.

I'm here. It's not the first time I've been here to give testimony, so it's a pleasure to be with you guys. I spoke to Sheriff Dicus because parts of my testimony are a little bit rough on him.

But I am here today because of the practical application of what has Assemblymember Ramos has managed to create in a Bill that helps the tribal communities. So I will get started. On September 15, 2024 Amy Porter, a tribal citizen of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, was last seen in the Lake Elsinore area where she lived.

On September 22, 2024 Amy Porter's body was found in a ravine off the highway in Yucaipa. The feather alert process failed. Amy Porter and her family. That's why we're here. There is a feather alert process, and up until now, because of the practical application, there were problems in it.

Although Mrs. Porter was last seen with her ex boyfriend, whom she had a restraining order against, and the ex boyfriend was later seen rummaging through Ms. Porter's home, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office failed to act when she went missing. We've had conversations again with Sheriff Dicus, you know, some law enforcement agencies with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Later on in my statement, it speaks to this. As a result, the Feather Alert was not issued until September 21, almost a week after Ms. Porter went missing and one day before, her body was found by a search party organized by her family. Keep in mind it was her family who organized a search party. Ms.

Porter was last seen fleeing the scene of an accident on the 10 Freeway. Because there was no Feather Alert, she was not identified. We don't know if the outcome would have been different had Ms. Porter been identified, but it would have provided a sense of hope for her family.

The county sheriffs have acknowledged the failings of their office. They also acknowledged that their inaction delayed the request of the California Highway Patrol to initiate a federal alert. Morongo has a good relationship with the sheriff's office, and the office generally has adequate resources to serve the area. We believe the sheriff's Office did fail

Ms. Porter, but that this tragic event highlighted the need for the federal reforms. And I, earlier at the press conference, I talked about the reforms. It's amazing that we, the Assemblymember Ramos, had to write this law. And, you know, there was a federal law that applied to tribal citizens within.

And these are just on the bound, outside the boundaries of a city that, you know, we can't call somebody to say, hey, somebody's been, you know, a person has been taken from the reservation and law enforcement to act and act immediately. These are reforms equally, if not more important to tribes within limited resources in remote areas.

And I say that because Morongo has a great relationship with the sheriff's Department. They provide services that we pay for. But not all tribes have that. And when you have that scenario where you don't know, it doesn't create a great relationship when you're not paying for services.

So we want to make sure that as I sit here and testify today, we've been working with law enforcement to do education with regards to Public Law 280, what jurisdictional issues, and to educate more and more law enforcement agencies and officers to know how to work with tribal communities.

It is for this reason Morongo supported efforts to contact the CHP directly to request a Feather Alert to be issued when a tribal Member goes missing. I gotta be honest with you, if it hadn't been for the Assembly Member, because he was my last call when we couldn't get anybody to help us, so.

And that's not his responsibility. We should. You know, when somebody calls a law enforcement agency and says, hey, somebody's missing from a tribal community. You know, we should be able to get the same services that every other community gets. So I want to thank you for you guys, the opportunity to testify before you guys this morning.

And I look forward, you know, to continuing to build a relationship with law enforcement, but, you know, the government of California and with Chairman Ramos to develop, you know, these reforms, develop policies where, you know, the tribal community can, you know, can access these resources without any hindrances. So thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. And Chairwoman Nelson, she want offer testimony.

I really don't. I'm sorry, but I could just, you know, reply.

Would you like to say it in the mic so we can record?

I actually don't get mad. I get even. Good morning, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here, and I really have a lot of respect for Charles here, and I think that he brought up a lot of this. It really comes down to working government, to government with the tribes and to make sure that we have that respect and that it is a mutual respect.

I think that tribal communities have came a long way working with government to government, and we have came a long way in instituting these laws and procedures to help us take care of these type of events. And these are our top priorities.

And I really appreciate that all of you have taken the time to hear the testimony of tribes. I have 1,000 Members in our tribe, and we have really put a lot of education into making sure that our Members have the resources that they need.

And I think that having tribes work together and unite and work together on this and help each other is a main component. And tribes are doing that. But, you know, the State of California really has to give us the ability to take care of our people.

And so, you know, I really don't have any personal stories to tell. We have been a very blessed and fortunate tribe, and we really haven't had anybody gone missing, and I hope it stays that way. But I am here to support all the other tribes, and I really support Mr. Ramos and all that he's doing for our. Our Indian Nation. So thank you.

Thank you so much. Chair. Next, we'll bring it back to the dais for any questions, comments, Assembly Members. Sharon Quirk-Silva .

Thank you to all the panelists and to the women. You are gorgeous in your tribal attire, but this is a serious conversation, particularly about the missing and murdered indigenous people. And I think the word that comes to my mind is equity. In response, if you live on a reservation, that should not keep us from responding.

The same way we would if it was a child in our neighborhood. And too often we have seen not just in tribal groups, but also in black and Latino groups. The response can be very different from the media, particularly the media, but also law enforcement.

And the urgency we know in those very immediate hours, within 24 hours of finding somebody who is missing is essential. So to wait or to debate regarding the Feather alert certainly is indicator that there's not the urgency there.

So being educated in this for all of us, whether it's at the local level, whether it's at the state level, county level, is that we need to respond when somebody has gone missing the same way we would for any other individual in our community.

And it's only with the speaking repetitively, as you have, Chairman, and educating, that these people matter. We all matter. And that response needs to be similar. And we don't see that. So I'm glad you're here. Keep speaking up and keep telling these narratives of who is going missing, because too often they're faceless. And the media.

I know a Netflix drama was put on about a young woman hiker who Gabby Petito, I think her name was, but we all know about her because so much was made about her and what happened to her. And when do we see these stories? So it's about.

It's our job to keep telling the stories until people start to see that this is an urgent matter. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other comments? Assemblymember Rogers?

Yeah, first of all, I also wanted to start by just thanking you for telling the story. I know that it's difficult to relay, especially when you feel like you haven't been hurt time and time again.

And so I want to thank you for continuing to show up and continuing to say the names of folks who we still have missing. And one thing that's very apparent is as with any other emergency or disaster, we need to do a better job of having those partnerships and those relationships in place before something happens.

Is there anything that we should consider or any ideas that any of the panelists have on how we as the state can help facilitate better relationships? I hear the call for additional funding, but better relationships, better partnerships.

Are there any other states that are doing this in a better way that California can learn from and how can we best assist in facilitating that, that exchange of information?

I would say that I know that the governor's office has created a task force to do a better job of educating, you know, law enforcement on Public Law 280 and the law enforcement's role in Public Law 280, because there's equivalent a civil component to this law. Initially, when the law was written, we've had to go.

Go back and make changes to it because the CHP had asked that language be inserted into the Bill that says that we exhaust all mechanisms of locating the person first. So that was the first thing that needed to be changed.

Now we're at that point in the practical application, as I've said, you know, we're working with Sheriff Dykis. The first time we wish we had gotten to Mrs. Amy Porter, you know, and the feather alert would have been issued. And as soon as the family first reported it didn't happen that way.

So we're hoping that in the future, because of the application that we had to run through that didn't turn out well, the next time it happens, we'll have a better outcome. So. But again, we are working with law enforcement and the governor's office has, you know, created a Commission to develop more.

I know that I was speaking to one of the gentlemen that I work with. He's probably going to be giving testimony here today. You know, I'd rather take, you know, little steps forward and instead of giant steps back. This is a. It is a tough issue for us because every tribal community is different.

So as long as people keep pushing forward, I think the momentum will carry us across the finish line and we'll end up with a product that the tribal communities can reach out to their law enforcement agencies in their territory and get the same. Get, get. Get a. Get a good result, get a. Get an improved result.

Go ahead.

I just wanted to say, and I know I'm probably preaching to the choir here, and you guys all know this, but in California, we have 109 federally recognized tribes, and we have tribes that are not recognized also, and we have rancherias. It's the only place in the world you're going to find rancherias. And rancherias are smaller reservations.

And so that really does make it hard for the state and everybody else to implement these procedures. There's only 500 and some tribes in the United States of America, and 109 of them are in California. And it is absolutely true what Chairman Martin's saying here.

Every tribe is a little different, and every tribe has a lot of different areas and land bases. And so maybe, you know, Your rancheria has 40 acres, but your aboriginal land is up and down a river that covers three counties. So it is really different in California than any other place.

And so it really does it's going to take a lot of cooperation and working together to make sure that everybody understands the predicament that we are in with this. Because I think that a lot of people just don't realize the rancherias in California and they maybe don't know all of the unrecognized tribes also. And living In a public law 280 state really complicates it.

I was going to say like as far as what your question was, what more can be done? You hear the funding part of it. But as Chairwoman Nelson stated, the cooperation, the communication this week is huge. And it shouldn't only be this week that it's emphasized. It should be a continual meeting and hearing our voices.

Chair Stone, as she stated, she gave many valid points on what we can do in the future moving forward. Take those points serious and follow up on them like hear our voices, but do the actual follow up. Assemblymember Ramos will do that.

But each one of you are also needing that follow up as well and keeping that open communication that we feel welcomed, that we hear heard and that there is movement moving forward.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the question. Assembly Member Garcia

Yeah, I had a question because I know there was a few names mentioned and so how is someone that's learning about these cases, about murder and missing indigenous people learn about the names and people that these events that have taken place, is there a resource that people can learn about?

You know, it's my understanding up until recently those statistics hadn't been kept. I know that there's a Department in San Manuel and I can't speak for the San Manuel tribe, but it's my understanding that they are beginning to keep statistics on missing and murdered indigenous people. So that's just hearsay. I mean I'm hoping to your question that that's that is the case.

So thank you Mr. Chair. I want to first just say to all the chairpersons for being here, thank you.

I know it's not easy to take time out of your day, your week and come up here and then take time to testify, which is not easy to get in front of a bunch of Assembly Members and speak from the heart and educate us. But you did that.

I mean this is so educational and eye opening for many of us and I just want to echo the comments from my colleague Senator Quirk Silva about how important this is and the commitment you have here.

So I think it's important for us to reiterate over and over again that we will not stop working for you until These issues are resolved and you have our commitment, and that's why we're here.

And I appreciate all of you, not only representing your own tribes, but as Chairperson Del Rio said, Chairperson Nelson Just how many tribal and indigenous communities are not necessarily at this table and are fighting for this justice every day, and whether our districts include those communities or not, you will have our commitment to get it right.

So appreciate everything you're doing, and we will be a partner to make sure that you get justice. Thank you so much for that, Assemblymember Jackson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You know, every time we honor this week, it really goes back to something that my answers have been fighting hard for, for centuries. And that is equal value of our lives and the same resources that others receive when others go missing.

It's just the expectation that just give us the same resources to look for our folks as you do others. And when you don't do that. And I would be interested to see the average dollar amount that is placed on folks when they go missing and whether that equals the same as a Native life when they go missing.

And also interested to see also the media participation when it comes to those things. I don't think people realize that when you expend resources for a missing person, you're putting a value on their life. And it's painful for historically marginalized and oppressed populations to see a less value placed on that life.

And so I think that as we begin to continue to highlight this area, but also to continue to look at the resource data that's being put, I think that even will put a greater light on the type of pain that is felt when no one even knows if a Native life is missing.

But yet we see all these other lives being highlighted and the perception that puts and the level of trauma that puts on our communities when we see the devaluing, it may not even be on purpose, but we have to consciously, there's people who have to consciously say, am I putting the same resources as I am from the last person that was missing?

Right. And whoever is making that decision, how are we making sure that they're able to understand the discrepancy that may be going on throughout the state? And so thank you for what all of you are doing.

Leading the way in terms of when you all began the feather alert, then the Black Caucus started thinking, man, we need an EBONY alert here because we feeling the same thing. You feeling right. And so you continue to lead the way. You lead the way in terms of intergenerational trauma.

You lead the way in terms of missing and murdered individuals, I mean, the wisdom your community continues to exhibit for your people are really helping many of your brothers and sisters in other communities find how to continue to heal and to establish the humanity of our communities as well. So thank you for what you do.

Thank you. Member Ramos. Chairman Ramos, can I. Committee Member Roger Rogers. Morongo has their own Police Department. There are several tribes out there that have, you know, have developed their own Police Department. If our Police Department had had had the ability to just reach out to the CHP and that has been.

It's kind of evolving, that would have really cut through a lot of red tape, I would say. I always place emphasis on not every tribe. Again, Chairwoman Nelson had mentioned that there are 109 federally recognized tribes and then there are some non federally recognized tribal communities.

So not all of the tribal communities have that ability to do that, but there are some that do. So I think at the end of the day, just the communication, lots of times we like to throw money at stuff as if it's going to fix everything. Just being able to communicate goes a long ways.

Thank you so much. Any closing comments from those giving testimony?

I'm just thankful to be able to come, you know, and get the opportunity to fill your hearts and your minds with some of the stuff that we've been dealing with in the tribal community. And thank you for your consideration.

I just want to go ahead and conclude at the end of the day, the State of California requires tribal consultation. However, many of the tribes lack the ability to implement tribal consultation in a full manner because thpos don't have enough money. That's a federal problem.

But at the same time, we also need to look to our counties when they're doing their budgets for set aside for PL280. You know, there's a fine line between where tribes sovereignty comes in and where PL280 comes in. And at the end of the day, I think the California.

I think that California is a leading example, you know, an leading example of the great things that we're doing. But that really takes Assemblymember Ramos and his team to advocate for us. And as you mentioned, Mr.

Jackson, you know, all bipoc communities, you know, require justification and equity when it comes time for budget appropriations because we do see the value that you place on our lives. So thank you for your time today and listening to our stories.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. And hearing the testimony and talking about 1960 cold cases, we'll have another panel up here with some of the law enforcement personnel and try to dig into what is truly considered a cold case. How far back do you go?

But also talking about the resources from the state and at the county level, making sure that we are getting resources into our budget to start to address some of these issues. We're talking about the front line of MMIP of missing and murdered indigenous people. But are we giving enough resources to those that have to move on? Right.

And make sure that their mental health and the resources are reaching them also, as other counties, county resources do, making sure that that reaches Indian country.

And Talking about the 1863 era of the historical aspect that has happened up in those areas of your area, but also trauma that has historically affected all of our areas and the mentality from that era to where we are today. And someone brought up the repatriation, I think it was Assembly Member Crook Silva.

So the mentality towards our people back here in 1863 of relocation, of trauma, acts of genocide, those things has the mentality of the State of California policies changed very much to where we are today in 2025 when we're still battling with 1.4 million of our remains in the archives of state institutions.

So those are all areas that we need to look at. And certainly Chairman Martin, with the situation in Morongo, will dive a little bit deeper into that. We do know that there was other counties involved, Riverside County, San Bernardino county and CHP.

But from that experience we have started tightening up on the feather alert and outreach that's going out. Just yesterday or Monday, there was two more feather alerts that went out without our office having to get involved. So that shows that there is that knowledge moving forward.

But there still needs to be a lot more that needs to happen. I think the government to government respect that was talked about during that consultation needs to happen. Mutual respect, that's there. But we also look at the issues and the data that's being collected.

Assemblymember Garcia started with a Bill when we first pushed a piece of legislation. We started moving our Bill as a hate crime for non Indian people coming on Indian reservations committing crime. That got pushed back by then Public Safety Committee because there was no data.

And so we moved forward on AB 3099 that entrusted the Attorney General to start collecting data on that. And we'll have an update and presence from that Attorney General's Office here on another panel. But data had to start being collected in the year 2019 on California Indian people and public safety issues. And that still happens today.

We're seeing that data that's not being collected from state institutions. That mark remains as unknown. And so we still are battling that in 2025 and making sure that media brought up media. When the media goes out, is it equal in highlighting when a Native American goes missing in the State of California versus others?

I think that's, that's a just question. That's a question that we should pose to some of the different committees here in the state Legislature to make sure that they're resonating that how much emphasis is being put in the media in the State of California when one of our people go missing?

And we did move forward with the feather alert. We actually had two amendments to the feather alert now moving forward. And I want to congratulate our colleague of the Black Caucus. They moved forward on the EBONY Alert.

And it's about time that people of color start to be able to have these types of alert systems moving forward to ensure that our statistics, in our case, our statistics here in the State of California, we're number five of all states in the nation of not even bringing resolve or investigating the murders against Native American people in tribal communities and federally Indian reservations.

And so we continue to tackle those issues. But we do have allies. We're starting to see allies move forward with Sheriff Dicus and others and the CHP Commissioner Duray. So we are working, but it's just the first step. It's not the end step.

What we're talking about now is a first step to get to where we need to be. And that's a long road ahead of us. So thank you for your testimony and taking of your time to be here. Thank you so much. As now we move to panel two.

Panel two will be exploitation and trafficking in a PL 280 state. We have Carole Goldberg, UCLA School of Law Distinguished Research Professor, and Jonathan D Varat, Distinguished Professor of Law Emerita. We have Chairman Joe James from the Yurok Tribe. We have founder and Executive Director Morning Star Gali. We have Co Director Dustin Contreras, Kern Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

I want to recognize Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, who joined us. Not sure if you have any comments. Thank you. Assembly Member.

Well, thank you for your time and your testimony as we'll start with Professor Carole Goldberg.

Thank you very much. And I want to express my appreciation to you, Chairman Ramos, and to all the Members of the Assembly who are here.

And what I want to start by saying is that missing and murdered indigenous persons is of course a horrible national problem, but it's a problem that is magnified in California because of a federal law that applies to Indian country here and in only a handful of other states.

That law, you've heard it mentioned is Public Law 280, which gave California and those few other states more criminal authority in Indian country on reservations than the state would normally have and withdrew a considerable amount of the federal Indian country criminal jurisdiction. I have researched and written about Public Law 280 for more than five decades.

That research is not only from legal sources, but also a considerable amount of field research. Hundreds and hundreds of interviews of tribal citizens, of state and county law enforcement officials and federal officials as well.

I received more testimony about this when I was one of President Obama's three appointees to the Indian Law and Order Commission, which delivered its report in 2013. In a nutshell, Public Law 280 makes the problem of missing and murdered indigenous persons more difficult to address for several reasons.

The first is that Indian country policing in Public Law 280 jurisdictions is seriously under resourced Public Law 280 withdrew, as I said, most federal Indian country criminal jurisdiction and the funds that went with that.

And it left states like California that were handed this jurisdiction no funds to carry it out, which means it was enacted in 1953 one of the very first unfunded federal mandates.

In addition, the passage of Public Law 280 caused the Department of the Interior to deny funding to tribes in Public Law 280 jurisdictions for their own law enforcement and justice systems. So we're talking about a serious underfunding from every direction.

Now the revenues, as we heard from Chairman Martin from gaming and other economic development can begin to fill that need, but certainly not all of it and shouldn't have to fill all of it. And furthermore, of course, with 109 federally recognized tribes, not all of them have the advantages that come with that kind of revenue.

The bottom line for communities because of this under resourcing is slow or no response. That has been the regular complaint in my research that we've heard from tribal communities in Public Law 280 jurisdictions.

And when that happens, you can be sure that perpetrators of kidnapping and murder are more likely to target communities where they perceive there is more of a law enforcement vacuum. It is the case nationally that there are problems for tribes in carrying out their own community safety because the U.S.

Supreme Court has has refused to allow most criminal jurisdiction on the part of tribes over Non Indians. That's a national problem. But the under resourcing is a Public Law 280 jurisdiction problem.

The second reason why Public Law 280 magnifies the problem of missing and murdered indigenous persons is is because it engenders a lack of trust between the communities themselves and the agencies that are responsible for safety in those communities. State and county actors are less likely to be knowledgeable about tribal cultures.

They're more likely to carry out their work in ways that lack the necessary knowledge. And furthermore, probably most important, the effectiveness of investigations is dependent heavily on the cooperation of witnesses and victims. If there is not trust in the system, then there will not be an adequate level of cooperation from these witnesses and victims.

And you get a vicious cycle of law enforcement agencies feeling like they're not getting the help they need and the communities not trusting to give that help.

And I'll add one more thing which is that if people from tribal communities are brought into the state justice system which is perceived in many communities as biased and as unnecessarily and unreasonably harsh, people are going to be concerned within tribal communities about that kind of collaboration or cooperation with county and state authorities.

In non Public Law 280 jurisdictions there is more likelihood of tribal police being the actors when problems arise in the communities of loss of life and kidnapping. And they are more likely to understand the community and to receive the kind of cooperation that is necessary to carry out effective investigations.

I know my time is limited, so I will cut to the question of maybe some actions that could be taken that could be helpful in alleviating these problems. I'll start with more training which I've been working with the California Attorney General's Office. I'm sure you'll hear more about this.

For county law enforcement and Highway Patrol officers and others who are carrying out this Public Law 280 jurisdiction, there is a big knowledge gap, lack of understanding. Frankly, the training needs to be mandated in some way because we can spend a lot of time creating it.

But if it's not undertaken and that's going to require some resources because it means officers, time needs to be taken. But that is one way to begin to address it and to increase the trust. More practice of community oriented policing.

That's basic 101 kind of stuff, but it makes a difference More formal collaboration between county and tribal police departments. Because of Public Law 280 Tribes in California were slower to develop their own police departments and justice systems. But it's happening.

I happen to be the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals at Pechanga, and I serve on the Court of Appeals for the Rincon Tribe. It's happening, but we need to have more formal collaboration through cross deputization and other kinds of formal agreements.

And there are states like Wisconsin, another public law to 80 state, where there is actually state level financial incentive to introduce and establish these kinds of policing agreements for deputization, more state support for tribal policing authority.

There are ways in other states like Oregon, where peace officer status is made available to tribal police, and that has enabled them to carry out more of the investigative work themselves in a way that is effective.

Frankly, at the end of the day, it is possible for state jurisdiction under Public Law 280 to be removed tribe by tribe. It's called retrocession. But it can only be initiated under federal law by the state itself.

And the State of Washington, for example, has passed legislation that would bind, almost bind the state to offer up retrocession if a tribe requests it. And that's already happened, for example, with the Yakima Nation in Washington. You know, retrocession's a big step, and I don't mean to suggest it's right for every tribe by any means.

It can be challenging in its own way. But sometimes the prospect of retrocession may cause local agencies that want to retain that jurisdiction to step up. So thank you very much for your attention.

And I have to apologize because I have to get on a plane back to Los Angeles at 12:30, so I may not be able to stay as long as I would like, But I'll be available later.

Well, thank you so much, Professor Goldberg, and certainly we worked and our histories go back to working on issues in Indian country. So thank you for being here. My pleasure. As now we'll move to Chairman Joe James of the Yurok tribe.

Good morning, Joe James, Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. I come from the village of Trigon, located on the Klamath River, here to talk about the MMIP crisis. When I sit here today and see if any room for this week.

Again, I wanted to remind everybody, as we know already, we are here speaking on behalf of the people that are no longer here, that are missing. They don't have a voice no more. We as a whole, with your leadership of some of Ramos, have made great strides the last three years.

When we talk about Public Law 280 as the Professor mentioned, there's a 70 year old federal law. There was never any consultation with tribes regarding this law. Let that sink in. We weren't in the room. We're in this room here today talking about MLAP.

When we talk about Public Law 280 we mean in a room or even at the table.

Yes it's a federal law but we as the State of California, the tribes, our community, our people, our loved ones are dealing with that impact here today and we have made great strides in short period of time to combat this crisis of mip.

It's been going on for decades since boarding schools and I mentioned that and keep mentioning that that was the culture. That was the culture to remove our identity and our way of life to eliminate us as people, as human beings. Fast forward that way of life and approval we're dealing with today sex trafficking, our women.

Still to this day we have a feather alert or from a brother earlier the first panel, we had a feather alert recently and again I think back wish you had had that tool 2030 years ago.

So it's mixed when I see that I'm very proud and happy that it's going out there that has way has rallied us as a community. When it hits hits the social media, it's all hands on deck for us at home working with our local sheriff, Sheriff Ponsel and his team.

The tribe made great strides up there in Humboldt County and we're going to continue to do that. But I wanted to talk about solutions. Some of the bills that we've been doing, working with our legislators, our advocates, our partners, our tribes, our.

I wanted to talk about them and put them on the floor because we provide these hearings and again we're speaking on behalf of the people that are here no more our families that, that carry those signs. It's very tough when, when you're packing that. But that's what we're built for.

We are packing on, on on that burden to bring closure, awareness, solutions. We talked about Public Law 280 other bills. As we know, most of these bills were not for us. We know that they were either to eliminate. Eliminate us, not support us.

But here again today I wanted to talk about a couple bills regarding solutions that are laid out strategically to address the NLIP crisis in California. But it's not a California issue as we know. It's a national issue I wanted to talk about. I've got a handful of them here.

Empowering Tribal Child Welfare Prevention AB 1378 Assembly Robbers Peace Officer stats for Tribal Police AB 31 Assembly Ramos. Enhancing Law Enforcement Coordination for MMA cases. SB 40 by Senator Cervantes. Also raising awareness for MIP ACR 39 by Senator Ramos. And finally protecting survivors of domestic violence for AB285 by Semi Rams.

Those are all tools that are on the table right now that we need to push over the finish line. When we come back here for California day in September, we need to urge the Governor to sign these laws into place. Known historically where we have come as indigenous people.

We paid enough as you mentioned, very similarly we paid in life, we paid in blood. We're still paying that price to this day. So when I mentioned those bills on the floor, we need to do everything we can to push them over the line.

When we're meeting here and for California today we're saying we hear you, we feel you, we're here with you. Regarding the MLIB crisis and we're saying no more. That's what we're saying. I also want to plug in additional funding in the state's budget. At a minimum. We need to double that at a minimum.

Again, it's not about the money. It's not about the line item. The State of California as a whole. This is what we're doing to help the State of California regarding to combat the MLP crisis. And these bills put forward here need to be championed and pushed and signed in law. Thank you Chairman Ramos.

Thank you, Chairman Joe James. As now we'll move to Morning Star Gali.

Shimmy Sanwee Morning Star Gali Maaji Mawi is Chi'I want to take a moment to thank Chairman Ramos for all of your dedication and hard work to our MMIP families that we work with. They are so grateful for you bringing so much attention to such an important issue that for far too long was ignored and made invisible.

I want to acknowledge our leadership in the room. Thank you Sesolai to the Pit River leadership that is here with us, our Vice Chair and council Members, thank you for being here and taking the time to be present.

And to all of the tribal leaders that are in this room for your steadfast dedication to address the MMIP crisis. We are grateful for you and your ongoing dedication to this work. Thank you to the honorable Members for being here to listen to us today. I am here to speak on an urgent crisis.

The direct link between Public Law 280 and the Trafficking and repeated violent acts perpetrated over generations against tribal peoples in California. When Congress passed PL 280 in 1953, it forcibly shifted legal jurisdiction over tribal lands to the state without tribal consent.

This violated the federal trust responsibility enshrined in the US Constitution and dismantled tribal sovereignty affirmed by Worcester versus Georgia in 1832. This was not just a legal betrayal, it was a human one. And today the consequences are devastating. California has the highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people cases in the nation.

While traffickers, gangs, cartel Members and other notorious violent offenders deliberately target Native communities because they know that jurisdiction is broken. It is fractured between state, county and tribal authorities with no clear chain of accountability. Survivors and families report being bounced from agency to agency while perpetrators continuously walk free.

In my territories of Issawi, our Pit river homelands across Lassen, Shasta, Modoc and Siskiyou counties, families have waited years for answers. Years for just basic police reports. They are forced to bury their children without ever seeing justice. Tribal youth are left without adequate protection or Services.

In cases like that of Nick Patterson, who has disappeared in 2020, families were left to organize their own search parties while agencies such as Shasta county stalled their efforts. This reality violates multiple legal obligations. The Trafficking Victims Protection act requiring states to prevent trafficking and protect vulnerable populations.

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Articles 722 and 40 to affirm our inherent rights to life, safety and access to justice. The California Government Code, Section 11019.8, mandating meaningful and timely tribal consultation on state policies that impact Native communities.

The California penal code, section 830.1 and 830.2, which authorized peace officers duties but failed to empower tribal authorities or adequately cover tribal territories impacted by 2L 80 jurisdictional gaps. VAWA, the Violence Against Women act and the 22 reauthorization restoring tribal authority to prosecute crimes like trafficking.

But in PL 280 states, just like here in California, tribes continue to face barriers to fully exercising this right. The failure to restore tribal criminal jurisdiction has created a legal vacuum, a loophole that traffickers, drug dealers and violent offenders and other criminals exploit. And California has failed to close.

California must now act to meet its state, federal and international legal obligations. We have solutions as well and we have handouts here that talk about the various cases.

I appreciate the mention of Gabby Petito because it was in August of 2020 when the case of Bessie Walker, when Bessie went missing and it was her own family that had to search for her. Well there. Well we saw, you know, in national media all out search efforts. It was in Shasta county when Sherri Papini self disappeared.

There were all out search efforts and in our cases on tribal lands. In the case of Nick Patterson, it was on the lookout rancheria in his homeland where federal authority, efforts and resources should have been enacted.

It was on the likely Rancheria when Milton Yogi McGarva was murdered and there should have been efforts and resources brought forward and there were not in both of those cases. And so the failure to restore tribal criminal jurisdiction, that legal vacuum, the loophole that is exploited in California and that California has failed to close.

This is not ancient history. It is a legal crisis. It is a living crisis that California must act now to meet its state, federal and international legal obligations by supporting the sovereignty of tribes and exercising criminal jurisdiction under VAWA and most importantly under tribal law.

Recognizing the authority of tribal courts and tribal law enforcement without interference from PL280 structures, by acknowledging the state's role in our suffering, by investing in tribally led public safety, including tribal policing, safe housing, victim services, cultural trauma recovery programs and youth protections. By strengthening and enforcing mandatory tribal consultation.

Ensuring engagement with all California tribal nations by reforming state codes and criminal procedures to recognize and defer to tribal jurisdiction wherever possible, especially for crimes of violence, trafficking and exploitation. That trafficking and repeated violent acts have been perpetrated over generations. California cannot claim to fight trafficking while continuing to uphold the broken racist framework of PL 280.

This is not simply about fixing policy. This is about protecting lives for generations to come. Cecila, thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Now we'll move to Dustin Contreras.

Good morning, Chairman Ramos. Good morning to the Committee. My name is Dustin Contreras. I'm the co Director of the Kern Coalition Against Human Trafficking out of Bakersfield, California. I was formed in 2012. At that time, I'll address myself as being my day job, which is at the time the first human trafficking detective in the county.

I was newly promoted that year and placed on or voluntold to go to these meetings. And in the training that I received, my eyes were opened. I learned about human trafficking, but what came with that was an immense feeling of guilt of all the what I considered prostitutes, which were actual victims.

And those victims that I saw at the time weren't just from Bakersfield. They were from every western state in there. When the coalition came to Kern, county, it was based on data from a laboratory to combat human trafficking out of Colorado. And why that's important was why did they focus on Kern? County?

And it's just to some of what we have said on other panels was because there was no task force there, there was no robust law enforcement reaction to human trafficking.

And why Bakersfield is very in particular is that if you look when it comes to trafficking is all the freeways come to Bakersfield before going to Las Vegas, the mecca of human trafficking. It's a last stop that you can traffic someone on the street level before getting there, as well as labor trafficking.

At some point, as a coalition created, we became subject matter experts in all fields, Department of Human Services, all federal law enforcement, state and local law enforcement. And in 2015, while doing a presentation, I was approached by someone I knew was indigenous and asked what we were doing about mmiw.

At the time, my eyes again were opened and as coming from Yaqui Apache Descent, I started asking questions. Here we are 10 years later and we're still talking about it. A lot of my thunder was taken from my panel here and I'm glad for that because they did cover A lot of things.

And what I'll go to ultimately is we've talked about protection, prosecution and prevention. But what I like to talk about is partnership. And it was mentioned earlier in collaboration, we've been successful when it comes to the human trafficking realm in that county because of the partnerships that we have.

And how that is important to MMIP is when conversing with whether it's another tribe from up north or up south. And if you know about Kern, county, that is a line where people consider themselves whether they're from Northern California or Southern California, and it falls within that county.

So a lot of conversation is lost and missed in translation when it comes to culture. The Tejon Indian tribe became federally recognized at some point and they reached out to the coalition about how going forward, how are we going to prevent all of these things?

How do we see the forest and not the tree in front of us? And in that time, we developed an indigenous Subcommitee and identified an Indigenous lived experience expert. Now, there is no reservation land within Kern, county, so we have high level of indigenous people there. But how, how to serve that?

And Vice Chairwoman June Nature from the Tejon Indian Tribe has started. And I don't. I don't want to say. I want to not say what. I don't want to misstate what it is, but. But it did. She did receive federal money to create now response to that, and that's encompassing all, all victims, all survivors.

The intersection of human trafficking as it comes to indigenous people in MMIP in a 280 state, where I guess the benefit of that is now we can navigate because we're building from the ground up, the systems aren't set now that we're going to be restricted in that way in the county.

The tribe has gone so far as creating a sheriff substation along with the fire Department within the gaming grounds as well as their government buildings. And how that's important is that as a direct response time that we talked about. There's a delay in response time, but I'll always go back to the partnership and how that's important.

Without those partnerships, we don't have that communication. We don't have the rapport within the systems. And I'll commend Assembly Member Ramos. We're made up of actions and words. We had a lot of words, we have a lot of actions. And I think going forward, these actions will come to fruition.

As a consultant of human trafficking, developing task forces all over the country, the one thing that was common was that California laws set the precedents when it comes to human trafficking and we don't see that because we live here, we only talk about 80% of what we know.

And if you just know California and even from the law enforcement standpoint, we don't realize how important we are to the world. Our economy says it all. But with that economy and with that money comes exploitation.

And that's why it's important to know the impact that the legislation makes, the impact that non government organization makes and how impactful and how infectious we can eradicate human trafficking and at one day potentially never ever have to talk about MMIP again.

I want the conversation to go because aside from getting victims, finding people and restoring this hope, Chairman Ramos talked about it before, after identifying this and finding people, there was the long term portion of reversing that trauma which is going to take money.

Sometimes we do, we stop there, we talk about rescuing victims of human trafficking, finding missing people and then the sensationalism is gone and what's left is dismembered person of trying to get their life back together. And that's where non government organizations come in. That is where funding comes in.

And we're glad to partner with the Tone tribe so that we can continue that to turn victims into survivors and then into lived experience experts so we can all learn from them. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much for your testimonies. Now we'll bring it back to the dais if there's any comments or questions. Assemblymember Harabedian

thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you for all the testimony and kind of starting with Mr. Contreras and Contreras testimony and really want to get the views of everyone. Do you all agree that there is a direct correlation between human trafficking and the MMIP problem generally?

And is that a material cause in your view of the issue? And I appreciate all the testimony. I would just love to get the feedback on that point. Thank you Evie.

Now I'll talk about we talked about data earlier and I get asked all the time about data and data can reflect that correlation. I think by the feather alert adding and very specific that if the person's in trafficking that a feather alert gets added that goes to show that the data is there.

Again when I talk about data I talk about the numbers that we don't know about and until we get those data and I forgot to mention part of that in 2015 learning about MMIW was that the fact that the census did not count indigenous people and so we're behind the curve when it comes to data and totally understand in the Legislature, when we're developing bills, we need data to back that up.

But I always go back to. It's the numbers that we don't know about that are the problem. And we saw this with domestic violence in the 70s and the 80s. We saw it as human trafficking came about, how it expanded. And there's a reason why California leads.

When you look at the stats from the National Human Trafficking Hotline, California has led from the beginning of that data forever in human trafficking. It's just. It's due to our population, it's due to the historical issues of trafficking. But Chairman Nature brought up a was a Department of Human Services. I don't know if it was a state.

It was a video where it talked. Two men are looking at a gym and looking at women to traffic. And they looked at one girl and they said, no, that's not. The actors in the video said, no, you don't want her. You want her. She's part of a reservation. They won't look for her.

Have you ever heard of that video? Has it ever been broadcasted on TV? And we'll go back to sensationalism and where the media responsibility lies. And there is a lot of that. So to answer your question, yes, absolutely. Is that displayed? Is that normal education that we get?

So we talk about how law enforcement needs the education, but we all need that education because in our personal and professional lives we can do something about it. But you have to back to the 80% of what you know. If you don't know anything about that, you're talking about 0% of nothing.

Thank you. I do want to acknowledge Assemblymember Pilar, Assemblymember Mike Fong and Assembly Member Caloza. Assembly Member Jackson.

Thank you for bringing up that scenario we were just talking about what are the most common scenarios that we see that are causing the particular emphasis on indigenous people. Right. I mean, can you elaborate on what are the most common scenarios in which we find this happening?

Is it on the reservations or is it outside? Is it just a particular targeting when someone is known to be someone who is a part of a reservation?

I'll diverse some of the specifics to the Doctor, but in General speaking, it's absolutely that. So traffickers are not as dumb as you think. They're master manipulators. And look for those gaps, whether it's in services, whether there's a robust. And they speak to each other.

If you look at trafficking, you can watch exploitation movies of pimps talking to each other and sharing information that absolutely happens on A faster level. And it's, it's depicted in social media, it's depicted in songs, in our music, and that's how they learn.

They used to publish books in the 70s on pimping and pandering, but it's, it's open to the imagination of the pimp. And as we delve deeper into MMIP and human trafficking, the intersection of that, that criminal underground will always find its way in how to exploit people. It's been done since the creation of this country.

It's been done at the ports of California and historically that's always been there. So it's at the imagination.

And traffickers champion themselves on coming up with ways and how to exploit people, especially children, how to groom them, how to look at a way into that home, whether it's via social media or face to face, typically in the past, without a City of having a task force there, that's where you saw the higher levels of human trafficking.

And so if I were to opine of what happens on a reservation, if there is no tribal police and there's no communication happening, whether it be in a task force on a response to MMIP and human trafficking, it will never get, it will never get addressed and you won't hear the scenarios because it'll never get reported.

And hopefully a case like that will get in the media. But when you talk about human trafficking, it is a shameful thing and sometimes those cases aren't brought out into the media because of that human trafficking and mmip. You can have someone that's maybe missing off the reservation and then you just hear that they're found.

What you don't hear is maybe what happened to them based on that confidentiality and they don't want to be a victim.

Thank you. Any other questions? Comments from the Dais?

I would just add that there's historical context to the trafficking and historical patterns. When you look at with the State of California, in terms of missionization, in terms of how indigenous women were enslaved and trafficked throughout the State of California, the most affected and most vulnerable populations now are youth in foster care. They are definitely a target.

I say that as a California Indian women every day is a fight against invisibility, a fight against erasure. In terms of the comment that was made that they won't be looked for, that those resources are just not being put forward in terms of the counties where our tribal lands are.

Thank you.

Another follow up. And just to add to Morning Star mentioned I heard this morning, you know, it's unfortunately nothing new, as you mentioned. But it's no longer in the dark. That's what we're saying. It's no longer in the dark and it's no longer. It's okay to be in the dark.

We're shedding light on it and bringing it forefront, you know, and that's. I meant no more. But again, we're shining the light on it with the help of our people at home, our expertise, our community. Again, that's. That's what I get out of this.

That's no longer tolerated and we no longer get to look the other way because it's front and center and the light is on it now. No more.

Thank you so much for that Assembly Member Quirk Silva.

We started the hearing and I had to sneak out to go to housing, so I missed a little bit about it. But we talked about education within the community and outside of the community about this narrative of the mmip. And like I said, even since I've been here, it's been talked about much more.

But for many people, it's not even on their radar. Is there any education within elementary schools or even within the homes about, in essence being on alert of whether it's grooming, whether it's potential risks that young, mostly girls, but I'm sure boys too, that could fall into. And I know parents worry about this all the time.

There's new schemes, if you want to say, to lure children, whether it's I have a puppy or come look for your mother, these type of things. They know how to, you know, work with young kids.

But is there any formal, I guess what we'd say, education that could be brought forward either in elementary schools or junior high schools on a reservation or outside, that can start to bring this. I know in airports now we see human trafficking posters and bathrooms and so forth, and that's because of legislation.

But is there more that we need to do or is there already a basis in place?

I would add, yes, more education is definitely needed, but that means more resources need to be available for that to happen. We are creating indigenous know your rights trainings with an indigenous rights framework for youth. But it really does need to happen, you know, on a personal level in terms of in the families and the homes.

I have three daughters between the ages of 11 to 21. I tell them all the time they could walk out the door and it's possible that I'll never see them again. So really providing that education around social media, around dating apps and all that they are exposed to.

Yeah, this is a topic that comes up all the time and in General, the pushback is from the parents within the school. I remember as a young man having to go through health, the health class that you were required to go through in high school. So that was in high school. I believe it's your sophomore year.

You have to go through that. So a lot of the pushback of children are too young in junior high specifically or elementary school to be exposed to that type of conversation. But ironically that's where traffickers start focusing on that age. So it is something that needs to be.

That conversation needs to happen and does that need to become a mandate? And I believe so. My opinion is yes, absolutely. In order to protect children, that education is important and like I said, it evolves.

The social media language that happens is constantly evolving and traffickers, no matter their age, learn that language and how to speak to our children and it's important.

Any other follow up. Just continuing like it back at home, we just had our MMIP awareness for not just the tribe, the community. We have the tribes involved. We've also worked with our partners in Humboldt County. What type of MMIP policy you have in place, whether it's industrial, whether it's business.

Again, when we speak throughout the county, we advocate, we educate and they're also part of the solution. Again, it's a community. Everybody's got to be engaged and involved. And again, no one gets to look the other way no more.

I think that's been the norm to speak honestly and whether you're working with the Yurok tribe, we'll put it on the table. No one gets looked the other way no more. Or throughout the State of California, historically where we've come, but education, awareness, our children, absolutely got to have that communication, that dialogue.

You know 20-40 years ago, you couldn't have that conversation. Now it's front and center. So we're having that discussion and it's great we're here in this room today having that discussion and us as leaders, legislators. Again I mentioned the laws again that are in place.

We have some laws in place that that could change the system, that could help out our children and youth in the next generation so they don't have to struggle the same thing that we're going through and to make that change.

Thank you so much. Assemblymember Pillar.

Sorry I'm behind you. I want to thank the panel today and sorry I was not able to be here earlier, but it's something that I've been proud to support and work with the chair on and his leadership really around this issue and really driven by tribal communities that have been fighting for this recognition and daylight on this important issue for far too long.

And you know, I just wanted to circle back to a comment you made about, you know, no tribal police, no task force, that these, you know, you know, kidnappings really are not going to be reported.

And, and I know that there's been good progress, you know, that we've been fighting for here at the state to make sure that there is more access to tribal police.

And you know, I wonder if there's, you know, there's more opportunity obviously to make improvements around some task force and really making sure that those connections between tribes, law enforcement, local communities, schools are happening. And I wonder if there's any thoughts or feedback on what that might look like in the most successful situations where you see these.

What are the elements that make them successful and really make a difference for those communities.

If I can answer. We just had a first in the state that we're aware of on Monday, MMIP proclamation by the County of Fresno where a task force. There's a commitment that has been made thanks to Supervisor Luis Chavez in Fresno county where they did make a commitment to hold and create a task force for Fresno County. So we're excited about that.

Thank you. Any other follow up?

Who's a part of that or do you know? Is there any detail yet?

It was just announced and so we will definitely follow up with your office on details. Yes,

And I'll add to that I like to look at history when it comes to that. And when you look at law enforcement in the, you know, in the 40s and the 50s, that those were the social workers, they did everything they could.

They could put you in the hospital for, you know, they still can put you in the hospital if you have some, you know, if you're suicidal. But they were also the social workers, they were the dog catchers, they were everything. And then we put it out to different social services systems were created for that.

And a lot of it is coming back to that where that law enforcement, whether it's a deputy in a rural town or in the city, is now putting that weight on their shoulders. And what's missing is that funding.

It's being asked to do all these hundreds of thousands of things, however, do it with your existing budget and I'll let the sheriff talk more about stuff like that. But that's one thing that we do have to recognize is that there is only so much one entity can do. And I'll go back to partnership again.

But when you have the conversation as Chairman Jamew said that is where it lies. Is that so you're having that conversation. So it's opened up.

I talked about where I'd been to other task forces and evaluating them all over the country and I've been to major cities where there were non government organizations that have heard of their names and had never met until we got them together in a room.

For 10-15 years you've had nonprofits that are working at the same goal and have never sat down to have lunch so that that that the power of that partnership is important and to me it is the foundation of that especially in dealing with government.

You have a lot of turnover but having a task force in central valley of Fresno who my coalition partners with that is important because that can lay the framework and that can show how that partnership is going to unfold and potentially be a model for the rest of the state.

Thank you so much. Any other follow up.

Thank you. Any other comments, questions from the dais? I want to thank the testimony for coming forward in this panel. I know PL280, Professor Goldberg did have to get to her plane.

But bringing up those issues, Public Law 280 from 1953 to where we are today under funding from the Federal Government, but also looking at states that are non Public Law 280 states and how this crisis is being handled in those areas and those states that are there.

I think talking about the training that's needed, I know that the next panel will have law enforcement officers here. But looking at that and the training, how far does it go talking about getting involved in post certification so they have some type of component.

They're learning about jurisdictional areas there when deals with Public Law 280 in those areas. But then also talking about the training. Right. That most of the times you'll see even tribal governments being first time aware of feather alert or resources that are available to them, but also with the local law enforcement.

So how could we do a better training before we have to enact the feather alert to search for someone and bringing them back home safely? I think that's probably a discussion. I know resources and those things for training between tribal governments and local law enforcement throughout the state.

And bringing up the topic of PL280 and so many times I know my colleagues and the Legislature, we hear it over and over on water rights, on different rights that when things were created there was no inclusion of a tribal voice, lack of consultation or tribal participation.

These were laws that were set into law that we're still dealing with now that did not have the voice of here in the State of California, at least California's first people at the table to say how this could work to bring some resolve forward.

And Chairman James so eloquently put it that no longer basically are Indian people having to take what's. What's happening to our people and not really have a voice. Keeping that in the dark if you will. But now shedding light on this issue in the state capitol that the voices are being heard, legislators are hearing this.

So there is no more of a lack of action because now we know it's one thing if you don't know the issue that you're not able to act and how to bring resolve to it. But now the Legislature is getting educated in these issues.

So we do need to act and take that responsibility of the state because the voices are being heard. That's there.

And looking at the media outreach and media outreach is very Important because if media outreach is not something that's happening within the first 24 hours of someone being reported missing, even if the Feather Alert is implemented, that media outreach to get that extra outreach out to the community could also be the component that brings a loved one home.

So that's a topic that I would love for us to dive into. And how is the media reacting to when a California Indian person goes missing? And Dustin, you talked about these issues that are there that you've seen growing forward. And has it opened your eyes to a lot of these issues?

And you brought up the area that I think so often that we, we don't address. And that's the after effect of an individual. Even if the individual is found and brought back home safely, there still is mental health resources that need to be addressed at that point.

So there is that ongoing effect that truly does need to happen. And you also brought up about the resources of NGOs. People could be working towards the same goal, but not even know that they're in the same room. That's a utilization of resources. Also, that somehow we have to get the word out on those areas, too.

And you mentioned, and you know, with a lot of tribes now in the success of economic success, some, but not all of the tribes you mentioned that there is a blueprint of those that are out there preying on Native American people because they truly believe that if they prey on Native American people, that somehow they're not going to be held accountable.

That is something that we've been dealing with in Indian country for many years, many years. And so thank you for bringing that forward because it is a true analogy of what's happening in Indian country to our people and how those that do criminal activities do look to Indian reservations as a lesser area of where they'll get caught.

But the next panel is going to. We're going to talk a little bit more how we're partnering and making sure that we're bringing resolve to that. So I do want to thank you. But I did have another question for Dustin.

Within the, the, the law enforcement aspect, we have trainings on, you know, shoot shooters, all these different things, even health and, and, and airplanes going down and all those things. Would it be beneficial to also have an exercise centered around missing and murdered indigenous women and people?

I would agree to that. I would say, whether it be statewide or each individual law enforcement. And then it comes down to the cultural competency of whether it's an instructor. I specifically am a missing person's instructor for one of our academies.

And of course I have a scenario specific to indigenous and it's not outside of the realm of what can be required. You can, you know, teach different things as long as it's within that realm. But yes, I would, would agree with that.

And, and again that comes with the partnership going back to that, you know, can only teach 80% of what you know. And if you are not exposed to MMIP and the best practices when it comes to talking about MMIP and, and where it's at, MMIP can change from Kern County to the next county over.

Los Angeles is the next county over. And then to the north of us, you know, we have Tulare. It can change just like the way again traffickers are going to focus on finding the gaps and looking at what they can exploit.

That changes based on the culture, based on how many people you have in your reservation, how many Members, how are they being educated, whether or not a trafficker knows if there's a task force and whether or not he knows that there are no resources, maybe to a smaller non gaming tribe that they can focus on and then the proximity of, to another state and escape routes, I mean it's simple as that of where they can get away with stuff.

So I think the scenario, yes, the training would have to be very robust and very culturally competent to get that out. If you standardize it, which I believe there is a standardized tracing response to mmip. It is a video out there for law enforcement.

But I think to go deeper in that and I think some of the agencies that are here today have displayed that where they do have specific individuals that are working in the indigenous area.

Well, thank you and thank you so much. Thank you for your testimony. Now we'll move to our last panel. Panel three will be the State of California's efforts and response to mmip. We have Acting Director Isaac Borjorquez from the Attorney General's Office. Sheriff William Honsal, Humboldt County Sheriff's Department.

Sheriff Shannon Dicus, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department Program Director, Cahuilla Councilwoman Samantha Thornsberry, Cahuilla Consortium Executive Director April McGill, the American Indian Cultural center of San Francisco. And we'll start with Acting Director Isaac Borges.

Isaac Pajorkis, Good morning. I'm Isaac Borjorquez. I'm the Acting Director for the Office of Native American affairs with the California Department of Justice Chair Ramos. Thank you for inviting us to come and to provide testimony and to the rest of the Committee, thank you for allowing us to be here.

I've been asked to share a little bit about what the Attorney General and the office is doing to address the crisis. You heard quite a bit already from the other panels, AB3099, a variety of other Assembly bills, PL280.

And rather than continue to preach to the choir, just diving in to AB3099 or that tribal assistance program, what have we been doing? What has the state been doing to provide public safety in Indian Country? Well, I like to think it's a lot. We've only touched the tip of the iceberg.

We started with Missing in California and Indian Country. We started taking these events throughout the State of California. We still need to complete the State of California. When we broke it up into our regions for MIC ic, again, that's Missing in California Indian Country.

We updated information for families and for victims with the Native American Marcy's Law card. We introduced Being Prepared Together Building a Tribal Community Response Plan. We had our first one down in Southern California. We are currently planning one here in the Central California area with partnering with Robinson Rancheria.

And you heard about some of the reasons why that needs to take place. When you heard about what is the information that a tribe needs to do when someone goes missing. And it just sticks with me.

From the last panel, it was asked about training and I'm going to deviate a little bit here when it comes to what do you do when someone goes missing? And there was a specific question asked of, well, is there training around that? And I had the honor and privilege of being able to attend a law enforcement training.

Sorry if I get the incorrect, I call it cate. But it's the child abduction training exercise. And so had the ability to go in and sit in and listen. And law enforcement worked through that exercise in real time. They were given a scenario, someone has gone missing. What do we do? What's step one? What's step two?

What's step three? So there's training out there for law enforcement, and unfortunately not all the time is tribal law enforcement or as tribal representatives in that room.

So I think that there are ways that we can take some of this training that exists already and highlight it and spotlight it to work for us, to work for our communities.

And I just wanted to again, kind of go off script a little bit to identify that just because there were some talks about training in that last panel. You also heard about PL280. And I want to applaud my employer, the Attorney General, Rob Bonta. He did the first of its kind.

He assembled an advisory council on PL 280. Many folks that are in this room today are part of that council and it was about identifying and not only barriers, but working through solutions. What can we do?

And again, looking back at training, there was training that the council has approved just yesterday built with the expert that Professor Goldberg that just left and leading that charge with our Department and the council.

And you heard a post and post said we're going to take this training, we're going to take this foundation and we're going to implement it, we're going to work.

They've actually even opened it up for folks that are a part of the council to have seats within post own journey in creating this training so that we don't lose the perspective, we don't lose the insight that we've already gained in it. And I really want to hammer that home because it hasn't been done yet.

We know that the training is outdated. We know that there are flaws with PL280, that it doesn't work for us. And when I say us, it's because I am a part of that tribal community.

And to be able to have a seat at the table and create what we feel that might work to open that door, to kick the door open, to be able to do those things, that's groundbreaking for us and so very hopeful to see what will continue to come of that and of the council and a working group capacity as we continue to push on.

So these are just some of the things that we are doing from the Office of Native American affairs and within the California Department of Justice. Attorney General Bonta has supported many bills, supported the Feather alert, AB 1314, AB 44, access to CLETS, AB 2695, criminal statistics, when we're looking at data.

So there is a good partner within the Attorney General's Office. He has been a great partner in, in my personal opinion for tribes. And so I want to call that out. That's why I work in the office. That's why I sit where I sit. It's something that I hold near and dear to me.

I think every tribal leader and every person in this room, we're here because we're committed to what we do. We care about what we do. We have buy in. That's why we're here. And so again, just highlighting some of those tips of the the tipper for it.

And when it comes to data, I do want to say that we got a lot of work to do around data. There's a lot of collection that needs to be done. There's a lot of partnership still that needs to be done.

With law enforcement to ensure that the information that the boots on the ground that that deputy or that officer is getting from individuals, that it makes it into the variety of systems that the state holds, there's some hurdles to make that happen. You heard about resources and funding and legislation things to ensure that those happen.

And that's all absolutely correct. We need those resources, we need those fundings to be able to build up those database systems, to be able to have whether that's someone that's typing that information into the computer, whether it's reprogramming that software, to be able to incorporate that things that we hear. Right.

Like you saw so many other panelists kind of hold their phone up at certain things. Technology lives in the palm of our hand, right? However, it takes some programming to make it work.

And so I think having those resources and the ability to do that and those funding mechanisms to be able to ensure that that happens is definitely much needed. In conclusion, I will say that the California Department of Justice is committed to bringing public safety not only to all California's, but to specifically the Indian country.

We know that there's an issue and Attorney General Rob Onta is committed to ensuring that public safety for all. I appreciate everyone's time and again the honor to speak here.

Thank you so much for your testimony. As now we'll move to Sheriff Honsal from Humboldt County.

Chair Ramos. Thank you. This Committee is very, very important. I appreciate everyone in this room because this is a situation that can get better. This is a situation that we can address.

And I appreciate your leadership in this issue because without you and your voice and the laws and the bills that you've championed, we'd be in a different place today. And so I really, really appreciate your aspect and your leadership there. Just like Isaac said, we have a lot of progress that we're making here in the state.

The state sheriff is committed to working with Department of Justice, the state and the tribes and all the local resources to try and tackle this issue and this problem. And so. But I want to start off by discussing the heart of a mother.

I had the opportunity to speak with Judy Risling before this hearing and Judy has a daughter that's missing. And for three and a half years Emily has been missing and she's one of our MMIP cases in Humboldt County.

And you know, Judy asked the question, you know, what happens when someone who is justice involved and has mental illness? What happens to that person when they suddenly disappear? What should the response be? Someone who society has stopped paying attention to, where the jails don't no longer hold them.

When mental institutions deny access and services to them, where they really become invisible to society, what happens when they vanish?

There's a tribal family and there's family of Emily that miss her deeply. But what should the response of government be when suddenly they want to report her missing? And you know, I want to say that government would be right on it. Tribal government, law enforcement. But the case is we weren't, we weren't right on this.

It was easily dismissed. It's just Emily, she's suffered mental illness, drug addiction. And so unfortunately she's still missing today. And so we have to look at these cases and we go, how can we do better? How can we learn from these?

How can the tribe, tribal police and law enforcement partner to make sure cases like Emily don't slip through the cracks? And what should the response be? Because we have 58 counties, we have 110 recognized tribes, but only 38 of those counties have tribes actually affiliated. But doesn't mean that tribal Members aren't living in all 58 counties.

And how are we going to treat these. And we can't treat them the same because they're not. Every county treats law enforcement different on tribal land. And that's why Department of Justice and the state sheriffs and tribal leaders are trying to fix how we handle Public Law 280 in California, how we deal with this.

Because the inconsistency throughout the state is an issue and is a problem. And so trying to be consistent in how we can teach law enforcement as their new officers in the post academy. But also how each county can specifically train to their, their needs and their, and their issues within, within their jurisdiction.

But it all comes down to a jurisdictional issue. Every county has a jurisdictional issue when it comes to Public Law 280. Who is going to take a lead when there's tribal police? Who's going to take a lead when this happens on tribal land?

And when you have an active tribal Police Department when the responsibility really lies with the state sheriffs. But we trust the sovereignty of our tribal nations and tribal police and we work along with them. So I want to recognize that this all begins with trust and all begins with having conversations before someone turns missing.

And we have to do better with that. You know, some things that we partner throughout the state with is state sheriffs support the Feather Alert. We support the pilot program that gives tribal police departments post status police officer powers. There was a pilot program that we all supported in this room and yet the Governor vetoed last year.

To me, that's unbelievable. It's just, it's, you know, so I hope that changes this year.

I appreciate our Persistence, the persistence of people in this room that we're going to get to the governor's office, we're going to show that when this Bill lands on his desk that he should sign this pilot program because the sheriffs want it in the north state as well as the. The tribal entities.

This is going to be good for, for our tribes and law enforcement in General. We compete for funding and resources on tribal land. And when it comes time for, you know, budgets are shrinking throughout the state, especially for law enforcement. So when budgets are cut, oftentimes we take resources from these underutilized areas.

A lot of them are on tribal land. And so there needs to be secured funding for more law enforcement on tribal land. There's no reason.

Just because the Federal Government doesn't pay, you know, tribal entities or law enforcement doesn't mean the State of California shouldn't recognize the crisis that exists and they should pay law enforcement, both the state sheriffs as well as tribal entities, to police on tribal land. There's no reason why that shouldn't happen.

Several things need to happen also with the Department of Justice. Crime labs are underfunded. And so what happens when someone turns missing? We go and get DNA from their families and we try and get DNA and we. And we upload those DNAs and those kind of things.

But Department of Justice is understaffed, especially when it comes to DNA testing. So if we find a bone, oftentimes they're these, testing these, these, you know, this for DNA falls back on several murder cases. They have ahead of them or not a priority for them. It's just a missing persons case.

And yet Humboldt County has to seek outside funding and outside resources to go and get certain things tested. We've utilized familial DNA to solve several missing persons cases in Humboldt County. But we had to go outside independent labs at. At a cost of $10,000 per test. But it's that important to us that we need to do that.

That can be changed with enhancing the Department of Justice crime labs. The state sheriffs are committed to working with our tribes and to try and help solve this problem. So we want to be at the table. So please include us, please. We'll continue to build that trust. Thank you.

Thank you. Sheriff Honsal as now we'll move to Sheriff Shannon Dicus from San Bernardino. County.

Thank you, Chair Ramos. Instead of repeating everything that both Isaac and Billy said, I want to get to what I call law enforcement. Street View. We heard a lot of things, particularly from Dr. Goldberg about the who. Whys and what's. And we have to remember there's two sides of this story. And she explained a lot of them.

And some of it has to do with law enforcement certainly being educated, understanding what Public Law 280 is. And then at the same time, we're dealing with sometimes the culture and things that are going on within the tribe, the distrust of law enforcement and those things that really are the inhibitors of getting those cases.

So one of the questions you asked was, how long does a cold case hang around? The answer to that is forever. We have cases over 100 years old, and you never know when there is going to be some piece of evidence that will introduce itself. And Sheriff Honsel touched on this familial DNA.

We are forensically solving past crimes that you never thought in the past you'd ever be able to solve, but it's a result of collecting the evidence at the scene. So some of the things Isaac mentioned down south, we actually sat on panels. We did something similar to what we're doing today, but we took it one step further.

For anybody that didn't have a police report or has somebody that's missing in their family, this is the opportunity, let's do it. And we have to work it backwards.

So we may or may not have DNA in some of those cases to actually be able to solve them, but we can work them and the good gumshoe cop work out there, that's what they do day in and day out.

And I think one of the things we're missing, and we talked about how the media hijacks these cases or hijacks and takes the focus off of many of the important things. I'll give you an example. I'm working with Assemblymember Garcia on mental health crisis intervention training.

We have to do a Bill to do that, to get these into post standards. Just like now what we're doing with the Attorney General to get these into post standards, we can do that. But it was mentioned earlier, too, a law enforcement officer. The answer to everything in the world is not training a law enforcement officer.

And a lot of that's believed because we have the street view. The problem is there are so many other entities out there that are also responsible. And you mentioned it several times today, the after effects. How do you recover from this?

Victims organizations, mental health organizations, and even in our county, and you've heard me champion this same issue. We no longer live in a nine to five world as it relates to these other organizations. Law enforcement needs their help.

Just because we are accessible 24/7 means they need to be accessible 24/7 so that our indigenous communities can get those resources and have those wraparound services and not be dependent on what was described earlier as, you know, we may be in the same room and not knowing we're working on the same thing.

So that street level view from law enforcement certainly has to be projected. Chairman Martin was up here. We absolutely had a case. There were mistakes made. In the modern era of you, me and everybody else trying to implement feather alert, there's still mistakes being made. We learn from those mistakes.

But where I see the media get hijack us sometimes is something will be said about law enforcement and racism. No. And they hijack racism. And now we aren't talking about mental health or substance abuse in modern tribal street view problems. And it's been asked here a couple of times, what is it? What is the human trafficking?

What's that? Dr. Goldberg said it if you have a community that is low on resources, whether it's law enforcement, whether it's social services, they could be easily targeted by the criminal element. So let's talk about some of our tribes who are very successful with casinos and things.

We're adding a whole new layer to that that I'm seeing that same targeting is happening. But just like you used to see where a single mom may have had three kids and they're receiving some type of public assistance, you would see crooks seek them out and then they take that money. The family isn't being taken care of.

Same thing is happening in our tribes. They're receiving stipends from the success of the casinos. In the case that the Chairman was talking about, this is exactly what I saw. This person that was dating her was a parolee, a convicted felon, has her drug addicted and is taking her resources.

And so where we've gotta change in law enforcement and where the tribe has to change is sometimes law enforcement. We come out there, we try to be respectful of culture and then the report doesn't get taken. Cause we're afraid to insert ourselves in that. And you and I have had conversations about this.

And now I gotta tell I've told my deputies, when we go out there, look, be considerate of culture. We're always gonna do that. But at the same time let mom and dad know we wanna get the bad guy. And it is that person who is making their sons and daughters drug addicted, supplying drugs.

And so when we talk about fentanyl and all these scourges in the State of California that we're dealing with right now, really nationwide that's how law enforcement's adapted and changed. We've adapted and changed to go after the people supplying that. And now our Das are working with us and we're talking about murder.

And we need to be doing that for our indigenous peoples as well. But we can't let these issues get hijacked. We need to start talking and getting away from everything being a racial issue. It's basic humanity. As an elected sheriff, my tribal Members are my citizens, and I take ownership of them and they take ownership of me.

And it's that consistent love, if you want to call it that. We need to demonstrate and that kindness to be able to combat these things. And I appreciate you always giving an audience for that. And please know in any way, shape and form, and I'll be a little bit street here with you, but we are down for the cause.

Thank you so much, Sheriff. And we have a great relationship going back in San Bernardino, county, tackling tough issues and bringing up. And we'll touch again at the end when everybody gives their testimony. But we want to touch a little bit more on victims of prey and talk a little bit more about that.

As now we move to our next testimony. Councilwoman Samantha Thornsberry.

Good afternoon. Good day. My name is Samantha Thornsberry. I'm a Member of the Cahuilla Band of Indians, tribal Council Member. But I think today I'm here in a very important role, and that's as our program Director for the Cahuilla Consortium Victim Advocacy Program.

This was an advocacy program launched back in 2010 by the Las Coyotes Band of Cahuilla Cupeno Indians who wrote one small grant and got this going. And they hired me in 2010. And we've joined with the Couilla Band as the lead.

Taking the lead now for the program, we've invited the Santa Rosa Band of Mountain Cahuilla, and then two years ago, Torres Martinez Band of of Desert Cahuilla Indians join. So doing 15 years of work doing advocacy and our territory, we hope to help everybody within San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties.

And that's a pretty vast territory. But today I'm happy that I'm here talking about what we're doing with the BSCC MMIP Cohort 2 funding. And I'm really excited to talk about this. I can talk about all the other topics I probably have through the years. But today I think we're doing some good work with the funding here.

So last year we received the Cohort 2 funding. We've always been for 15 years solely federally funded. So we're incredibly grateful to be the recipient of this state funding, our federal funding. Right now, as many of us in the room are feeling the climate has been uncertain.

The grant forecast as of today doesn't look like it has looked in years past. So that just causes us a lot of uncertainty. In the past, we received OVC granting through the Department of Justice on the federal level, you know, upwards to. I think the largest grant we ever got was $1.3 million.

And we see that being dramatically scaled down, which has me concerned because we've grown a program, a pretty robust program with infrastructure. You know, it's like build it and they will come. Yes, that's what happened. But now it feels a little bit like we're on uncertain ground and being cut off at the knees a little bit.

So again, Cohort 2 and the project, we're really grateful to have it. The first thing, there's basically three goals of this project. The first was to hire staff to do do the work of the project. So that's partially my time for the grant management. I get all the nerdy stuff.

And then we hired a full time outreach prevention education coordinator and then we also hired a full time advocate. The advocate was hired last December of 2024. We put her through training for about a month and she started helping assisting survivors in January of this year.

And I ran a report last night because I wanted to know, From January of 2025 to today, May 7, the Advocate is currently assisting six individuals who are survivors of domestic violence.

And as many of us in this room know, DV is often one of those intersectional types of crime that when we leave it unchecked, can lead to missing and murdered. Often when we see survivors come to us, it's because of DV predominantly.

Then, as the advocate builds a rapport and a trusting relationship with that survivor, the stories of human trafficking, sexual assault and stalking come to the surface. I love to spend all my time talking about advocacy because I'm passionate about it, but I want to get into this project a little bit more.

The second thing we wanted to do, and I love the language about collaboration, cooperation, I've always said my mantra is the right hand needs to know what the left hand is doing so we can work together.

So overall, the project, like the product that we want to build, is to tackle a website hub that's made for California Indian countries, created by tribes for tribes. I want it to be a very complex matrix of networking and tribal platforms. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel.

There are a lot of great websites that tribes have across California. We want to create a matrix to bring them all together under one umbrella, if you will. I gotta age myself a little bit here. When we started writing this prod, this project, the narrative, I'm 50 something and I have staff that are 20 somethings.

And you know, in my mind I was thinking about the MMIP tool kits as many of us are working on. And in my mind it was a binder. And of course, you know, a binder. What do you do? You do all the work and it sits on the shelf and gets dusty, right?

So this, it was really my colleagues who are coming at me with all this technology that we have at our fingertips, right? And so the idea that we could build something that would be accessible for everybody, and that's tribes, our native counterparts, other service, non native service providers, our law enforcement, like a variety of audiences.

So at the heart of it is collaborating and sharing resources, talking about training. Those are the things that we go out and do. We love to go into our communities and talk about what does consent look like? And you're never too young to talk about consent, right?

We've gotten pushbacks from the local schools that that's not approved to talk about. And so predominantly a lot of our outreach and prevention occurs within our tribal communities, at our conferences, at our cultural and tribal events. So at the heart of this will be sharing resources, but advocacy, helping people in need and what that really looks like.

One thing there was a silver lining for surviving the pandemic and doing advocacy work, and that was learning how to provide remote advocacy. At learning how to navigate Uber Eats, we have a relo share platform where we can secure hotel rooms anywhere in a safe and confidential manner for our survivors to access.

So that was the silver lining of being able to do that. And we would like to grow the idea of remote advocacy across the state with kind of our know how. But ultimately, that website, it's going to consist of resources and contact information divided into northern, central and Southern California regions and then further divided by audience.

Again, that might be survivors. It could be survivor family Members, tribal community Members, tribal service providers, non tribal partners, tribal government leadership. The question was asked, as a tribal leader, if a Member came to me and wanted to discuss a Feather Alert, I need to know what to do to initiate that.

I could log onto this hub, go to tribal leaders in my region and download the information to get that Feather Alert initiated. Overall, our focus again is just to share all of this pertinent information and then the third step is once it's built, which we just had.

May 1st was our first design meeting with the company that we've hired to actually produce the website. And I thought that was apropos. May 1, it really felt like this is MMIP month that we're getting together and getting this done. So we've been working hard to develop the content.

By the fall, we should have it ready to go. And our project team, including myself, our outreach Prevention education coordinator and our advocate, we hope to utilize.

We're going to buy a vehicle, we're going to wrap it with the information about the website and the hub, and we're going to take a road trip and hopefully we can visit every tribe in the State of California and come back here to Sacramento is kind of our goal because we want to share and communicate how to use it as a tool.

And we want to partner and start helping to promote healing and resiliency throughout California Indian country. I guess in closing, I want to say that we've also submitted Cohort 3 application because we feel like again, going back to we're building it, we think it's going to grow and we want to be prepared for that.

So we've really added to the advocacy piece because we're going to need more advocates to do all the work and everything that that entail. So after it's launched, we're going to be visiting and sharing what we have with others. We want to be prepared together.

That's what we've always said in Indian country when we're talking about MMIP is being prepared together. I want to thank the State of California for carving out and putting that BSCC MMIP funding that set aside for mmip. Knowing that the state and Assembly are also advocating to end violence against our tribal women and girls and our people.

It gives me hope and the energy to continue doing this work. I've been doing this work for 15 years. I can tell you. 15 years ago, 10 years ago, the support wasn't there. And it takes an emotional, physical and spiritual toll on you and your community.

And this every time I this is the third year I've been here for the month of May and the activities. And it buoys my spirit to want to keep going because it gives me hope that we can see an end to this crisis. I thank you for your time. I thank you, Assembly Member Ramos, for the invitation.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Before we move to our Next presenter, April McGill, acknowledge Senator Richardson joining us here on the dais.

Thank you. It's an honor.

April McGill.

You didn't say Yuki resistance. Oh yeah. We thank you, Assemblyman Ramos, and the California Native American Caucus for hosting this third Annual Missing Murdered Indigenous Peoples Awareness Week here at the Capitol. My name is April McGill.

I'm an enrolled Member of Round Valley Tribes and a direct descendant of the Yuki people, one of the communities in California with the highest number of MMIP cases. These numbers don't even reflect the genocide committed and led by the State of California against our Yuki people. I'm also a family Member of MMIP and an advocate.

In 2019, my niece Natasha Still Botiga was found drowned in Del Norte County. In 2020, my brother Kavanaugh McGill was shot and left for dead. He passed in April of 2021. Neither of them has ever received justice.

Today I serve as the Executive Director of the American Indian Cultural center in San Francisco and I'm a founder of the First American Indian Cultural District in California.

AICC has led efforts on domestic violence and MMIP in San Francisco by hosting events, listening to Native families and survivors, and offering micro grants, emergency assistance and culturally grounded healing practices. Our mission is to improve and promote the well being of American Indian communities and increase the visibility of Native cultures in urban settings.

We're committed to combating the MMIP crisis because San Francisco is ranked 10th among cities nationwide in MMIP cases. Over 60% of native people live in urban areas and many come from reservations such as my own in search of safety and sobriety but also face new vulnerabilities through aicd.

We have hosted Community Visions sessions and strategic planning with Native led organizations in San Francisco to prioritize the need of our people. Our goal is to build a model for urban and tribal communities throughout California. We seek to close the gap in intervention, prevention, response and recovery.

I want to share with you some of the MMIP advocacy strategies that we've gathered from these listening sessions. Strategy one is transparency in data. Establish an annual report and public briefing from the district attorneys and law enforcement on all unresolved MMIP cases in San Francisco in 2021.

AICC and AICD advocate for a Truth and Healing Committee for San Francisco through the Human Rights Commission, which is now moving forward with a Fund with funded with funding needing to do a needs assessment for San Francisco's Native community.

Strategy two is Community Law Enforcement Partnerships Form a working group to strengthen interest and develop culturally competent protocols for MMIP investigations. This came out of the murder of our sister Jessica Alva, who was murdered in 2019 in San Francisco. Six years ago and never received justice from the Police Department.

We are asking that by having these partnerships we have proper investigations, DNA testing and avoiding cold cases or cases that are opened but nothing is happening and families are stuck having no answers. Strategy three is Housing for Survivors Assess and dedicate crisis short term and long term housing for American Indian people fleeing or recovering from violence.

AICC and AICD are partnering with our Latino allies in San Francisco's Mission District to ensure new developments that are coming into our district serve our most vulnerable population and that includes survivors of domestic violence and MMIP and foster youth.

Strategy four is Culturally Rooted Healing to expand Trauma informed Indigenous led care programs like those we offer to Friendship House clients who come to our powwow drum and dance classes weekly as part of their cultural healing.

Strategy 5 is public education Campaign Implement a citywide MMIP awareness campaign using culturally sensitive high visibility messaging to inform and connect our community with services.

Strategy six is Strengthen the Feather Alert System Enhance our local capacity for rapid response and safe return through a community centered alert system to prevent disappearances and loss losses through losses of life in San Francisco.

As an advocate I get called a lot from tribes tribal Members about their loved ones coming to San Francisco and our Tenderloin District has the highest Fentanyl crisis and a lot of our women and men will be lost in the Tenderloin. They become subjected to trafficking and MMIP. Strategy 6 Strengthen the excuse me.

We are also advocating for a permanent American Indian Cultural center in San Francisco within our American Indian Cultural District which is dedicated to healing through traditional arts wellness services for families of violence, MMIP Substance Use Recovery and Foster youth services.

In 2020 I co authored a report with UCSF Native Survivors and DV Partners highlighting that culturally specific services like sweat lodges, roundhouse ceremonies and access to traditional healers are the preferred method of healing for many of our survivors.

That's why we urgently need more Native led shelters, treatment centers and cultural spaces that are safe and inclusive of both men, women, two spirit individuals, youth to practice their cultures and traditions. We are doing this work not just for those who we've lost, but for those who still need healing, justice and safety.

We see San Francisco's MMIP advocacy strategies from our Community Vision Listening sessions as a model for other cities and tribes to follow. We need to stop putting the responsibility on tribes to shout for funding when one of our loved ones goes missing or is murdered.

Tribal communities need to partner with urban communities because we have our tribal Members coming in to receive services. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your testimony as we bring it back to the dais if there's any comments or questions. Assembly Member Caloza.

Thank you so much. Chair Ramos, first, let me thank you for your leadership. Honored to be a Member on the Select Committee and just really appreciate all the testimony from everyone here. So thank you to all of our tribal leaders, Members, advocates, to our law enforcement officials, to the Attorney General's Office.

I used to my last position worked as a deputy Chief of Staff for Attorney General Rob Bonta. So thank you and congratulations to you, Isaac, and your acting Director position.

And I would be remiss if I didn't also recognize our former Director, Mary Kiefer Lopez, and the work that she's done in the Office of Native American affairs there.

And really just wanted to echo some of the thoughts from my colleagues that they've already mentioned that you have my commitment to really extend the work beyond this really important Select Committee. We all sit on a number of committees on Housing, Water, Parks and Wildlife and a number of other committees.

And I think that what you find here in the Select Committee is that you have a lot more advocates and friends really asking those really important questions so that we talk about all the other issues as well, in addition to mmip, the impact Tribal communities.

And so I just wanted to extend, you know, that offer to all of you. Please reach out to me if I could be of any help. And of course, we'll work very closely with the chair to ensure that your voices are represented in all the other issues that we are making really important policy and legislation on.

So just appreciate all of you for taking the time today and thank you again to our chair.

Thank you so much. Senator Garcia.

Yeah, first off, I just want to say thank you for all your work in addressing this crisis individually and your organizations. I've learned a lot today regarding this panel. I think initially one of my questions is why is there a disproportionate effect on Native American communities? And so happy to learn, or not happy.

But I did learn that the intersectionality with human trafficking and those issues and kind of preying on vulnerable communities is, is part of the answer. And so once again, I appreciate all the work that you do. One of my big priorities is mental health.

And so just this past weekend I had a chance to speak with a friend who works for San Bernardino Riverside Indian Health and talked about the federal funding that's in question. And so it's unfortunate because when we should be going the other way and having more funding for mental health and to, to make survivors whole, that's.

That's really what we should be focusing on. So I appreciate the strategies and so looking forward to working how we can make that happen. So, so thank you so much.

Thank you, Senator Richardson.

I really didn't plan on bringing any comments today. I came to listen and I think that's what we need more legislators to do is to listen and learn. As I said this morning, I commend you Assemblymember, for making us all aware, educating us more, but also holding us to the fire to start doing more.

And my commitment today is that our fourth annual next year we're going to have joint resolutions, we're going to have joint hearings that you've got Senate people who are committed to working with the Assembly Member to make sure you have the level and focus in both houses so that as the money is brought forward, everyone is aware and we can see the progress that is long, frankly overdue.

So count me in. As I said this morning, I sit on both budget and appropriate. So I'm going to be looking. Specifically I've asked my staff to pull out areas where funding does apply to the indigenous community, tribal community, and I want to make sure everything I can humanly possibly do, I'm going to do.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much. And you know, just some follow up questions or comments. We heard that there has to be the training and the data still needs to be collected. We are working tirelessly with the Attorney General's Office, Attorney General Rob Bonta, since we got here in the state Legislature on moving forward on collecting that data.

That still needs to be reflected in a lot of the reports to both sheriffs. I mean we talked about the issues that are out there and the need for the state to move forward on pieces of legislation. We did not take no for an answer on that piece. We reintroduced it.

And so we do believe that there has to be true policing authority in Indian country specifically to missing murder Indigenous persons to be able to investigate those.

But I do want to take it another step further because we talked about and we heard on another panel how criminals are preying on Native American people, how there's a blueprint and there's an acceptance by those in the criminal element that when you commit crime against Native American people, you might not be held accountable for it.

And then we hear about now what's being preyed upon with tribes with economic success. So is that something now that we need to also bring out of the dark and into the light on both sides of the equation of how tribal communities and law enforcement are now together Trying to bring awareness around this issue.

Chairman, I'm very impassioned about this. And you got to let your cops be cops. If it looks like a crook, it walks and acts like a crook. And we know this. We know this. We're partnered in many places that do have economic success in terms of casinos and a number of things and different contracts.

But the reality is, like in San Bernardino, county, for instance, and this comes through with the data as it relates to DOJ, we're number two in ghost guns. Your county is number two. We sit next door to Los Angeles. I could trip over a ghost gun in Los Angeles. There's 9 million people there.

But you have number two. In our county, we promote. I heard it, you heard it on the panel, Community Policing. I speak to the youth councils of our tribes. They go out and have direct access to me. I get to hear what their concerns are. And then the same thing.

I sit in front of our council and get those same questions. So we have the relationships, and I explain why, what goes on. We talked about the heart of a mother. I want all of our counties and all of our sheriffs do feel this way.

I want anybody in the community, no matter what their walk of life is or the color of their skin, to know that when I call my police, they're gonna find my kid. And we are gonna be relentless about doing it. But part of that being relentlessness is understanding what law enforcement does.

Don't paint it in a racist picture, don't do these things, don't say traffic stops shouldn't be done and do these. All these other things. Reasonable suspicion is established by a trained law enforcement officer. And even though you may be stopping somebody for a taillight in the middle of the night, I don't know anybody's mother.

No matter whether they're from a tribe or whether they're from a Caucasian neighborhood that says there's something goes on at 2am that cop will make that stop. And it may very well be a law enforcement officer, a Doctor going to work in an emergency room.

What you would expect, and everybody would expect in that room is immediately, once we've identified they're not a threat, tell them about their tail light. Let's hope they get it fixed and move on.

However, when you contact that person and then when you run their driver's license and their name and they come back recently being arrested for methamphetamine, on parole, on probation, domestic violence, you name it, all these things that forces a trained cop, you look a little bit harder about what's going on.

That is how we're recovering the ghost guns. If we're able to do this, and we promote this both through training and many things that have been up to date, we will get to these predators on our tribal lands and we will take care of business just like we do in other communities.

But we have to understand each other. We sometimes you have a lot of cops, junior level cops, newer ones that they do, you get confronted with that cultural issue about, hey, we don't. And I completely understand why there's no trust for cops. All these other things get it.

But we have got to break through that barrier and tell those parents, look, I need access to your son or daughter's phone.

We gotta figure out, we heard social media and so many different portions of this panel today, we have the tools to get in there and find the dope dealer that's preying on them also socially, if they're economically receiving funds, they become immediate prey by the criminal element because the criminal element wants to move into that, have a relationship with that, take the money, get them drug addicted to where they're not even coherent anymore and they're being ripped off 100%.

And it's the same thing that Dr. Goldberg, when she said it came up here before the casinos, the same access was happening because you have this sovereignty battling with Public Law 280. And really who understands it? The Doctor said that there's confusion. And so imagine law enforcement's in the middle of the confusion.

What we want to do as sheriffs, we're cutting the confusion. When we come in there, we are going to investigate the crime and we are also going to be sympathetic 100% and understanding of culture.

You know, many times you and I have been on the phone over, you know, when a tribal Member passes away, there are tribal customs that go along with that. Well, putting on my coroner's hat, that doesn't always sink right.

So understanding each other, having these conversations and one of the other things that was said in here is the respect of government, respecting the sovereign government of our indigenous people. Your sheriffs, your police, we do respect that.

All the chairmans that represent in our county, they have my cell phone number because I respect that government and I recognize it and I want to be part of it because I owe them that service.

We are still making mistakes though, and I promise you that we and many of the sheriffs and many of the chiefs of police will own those mistakes only to get better. And we need to do that.

So we owe you and any other citizen to say when we've made those mistakes, we're going to get better and continue making those relationships. When we're talking about community policing and we're also talking about having a law enforcement presence out there that is seeking the criminal element before it gets to our citizens.

And unfortunately, there's a lot of things that get painted in a red or blue picture. We have got to start focusing on humanity, basic humanity, and get at that and do better, whether it's mental health, substance abuse or simple service.

Thank you for that.

Would you like to add anything to that, Sheriff? Yeah. Sheriff Dykins did a beautiful job explaining a lot of the challenges that we, that we face. But one thing that we need to get over is this mutual trust. Mutual trust has to happen between law enforcement and the community.

Why is it, why is it if we have our drug task force drive thru reservation, why do we get more phone calls with we have law enforcement officers driving through than we do the drug dealer driving through? Right.

The drug dealer goes unchecked, the drug dealer goes through tribal jurisdiction and they say, you know what, not my problem. I don't need to deal with it. I don't need to report it. Not my deal. And that is a problem. You know, the tribe knows their community the best, right?

When there's a crime that happens on tribal land, sometimes people like cartels, gang Members, thugs, they prey on the fact that there's not cooperation, there's no cooperation between the tribe and law enforcement. So they're safe doing crime or dealing drugs or whatever they want to do there and they can't hide behind this any longer.

And I feel like this is where we need to make strides within our tribal communities and law enforcement to make sure that trust is built.

When there's a crime that occurs on tribal land, that we have multiple witnesses moving forward to say, I want to be a witness, I want to tell you what I saw, I want to tell you who the drug dealers are. I will testify in court, I will do that.

This is what we need because oftentimes none of this happens in front of us. Right? We're operating after the fact and we need witnesses, we need evidence to act. And the only happens when we get there and we find cooperative witnesses, cooperative scenes, cooperative government, cooperative people there.

And so we're going to continue working on that and express the importance of that. But we have to stop being tolerant of some of those people that are maybe our family Members that are dealing or having drug addiction problems and start reporting those people.

You know, we got a Phone call last year in Humboldt County where there was a guy that was in jail in Oregon and he's addicted to drugs and he's a tribal Member of one of our local tribes and they were afraid that if he got out of jail and we wouldn't go up there and get him on a warrant that he would leave and that he would become another stat, a missing person.

And it's not something that we normally do is go out of count or out of state to get someone on a low lying offense like this. It takes a lot of coordination with the DA's office and those kind of things.

But it was important enough that the tribal chairs, leaders in tribal government and the family of this person that we went the extra mile because we knew the importance of that.

And we got this person back in custody in Humboldt County for a minor because it was best for him and his mental health and to get him in jail. And the family recognized that.

And so we want to work and cooperate with that and that needs to be the model throughout the state that we're able to do cooperate with different circumstances if there is that mutual cooperation with the tribes and law enforcement.

Thank you for any other follow up.

I just wanted to say as part of our prevention and awareness education, when we are working with survivors, you know, never assume first we've got to let that individual know that they're seen, they're no longer invisible, that we care about them.

And you know, oftentimes when you've been living in trauma, you know, you need time and space for healing to take place and certain things like knowing basic, you know, how to manage your money, shopping, cooking, you know the basics and that's what we're there to support them through when they're ready to do that.

But that takes time and space when you're really helping a relative and being a good relative. Just wanted to add that.

Thank you. Any other follow up?

Just that educational component. You see it even, you've heard about it with NFL players, right? They make millions of dollars, but nobody's ever taken the time to actually educate them how to manage, how to invest it and do that.

As we see our tribes become more successful in a number of their enterprises, no matter what they are having that level of education that now you have something that you have to protect and you have to be aware that predators out there will try to take it from you and just raising that overall awareness and then knowing that law enforcement, we are good at finding predators, we are good at taking them to task, but we have to have the cooperation, as Sheriff Hansel said.

And we want to do this the same thing. We didn't mention much on tribal police with this panel, but we support tribes having their own tribal police, making sure they have clutch, which are the systems that give criminal histories on these predators. But they just have to rise to the level of peace officer standards.

As much as we need to put this in our local academies, and I have a regional training Center for this, we need to make sure that those tribal police departments, number one, they are always welcome at our regional training centers. We get them up to post standards, we make sure they get klutz.

And now we become partnered in seeking out the criminal element.

Thank you so much for that. And the question of criminals preying on individuals now from tribal communities was kind of alluding to the next step. We're focused on mmiw, making sure that if cold cases are there, we're getting proper investigations of them. We get the Feather Alert moving out.

But are we so focused on that that we're not seeing the next wave? Right? The next wave of what criminals are praying to? Because we heard that the criminals adapt to situations. So this is something that's very interesting to see and hear more about in future discussions of. Is that the realm we're going?

If that's the realm we're going? And Chairman Joe James said it so eloquently, things are no longer in the dark. They're being brought out into the open, into the light. So there is responsibility when the light comes forward on these issues.

But I do know that when we, since we first started working with this topic and with allies, the Sheriff's Association, we have moved forward with the Attorney General's Office on collecting data of a successful prosecution for a Pitt river murder that took place, and local law enforcement being able to now understand the mechanisms of the Feather Alert and how it's implemented.

And again, allies within the CHP office and the tribal communities. So we continue to move forward in these areas, but we don't want to be so focused on one issue that we're missing another issue that also could be bringing harm.

Domestic violence, mental health resources is something that we've been also engaged in and championing with our colleague here. Domestic violence is a big issue. We currently have a Bill that's trying to address some of those issues.

But I do want to thank each and every one of you for being here today and truly your testimony and your support around these issues. Thank you so much. As now we conclude the testimony, we'll move to public comment.

Public comment is meant for anyone in the public that would wish to make a statement up to one minute. And please state your name and where you reside and your comment.

I am a Council Member for the Hung-A-Lel-Ti community, and we are the California side of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California. I am also a District 3 Supervisor for Alpine County. And in that capacity, we were talking with our CAO for Alpine County about getting...

It's about 44 and a half years ago, talking about bringing an awareness through CSAC and through RCRC for the corridors, the highway corridors for trafficking along. We stay on 88, but there's Highway 80, there's Highway 50, there's 395. I know, and I work with a lot of tribes on those corridors down Bishop, all the way down 395. And we're talking about, through the CSAC and RCRC funding, bringing money to bring awareness to try to help prevent that trafficking.

Also, another comment I wanted to say is that through the Intertribal Council of California, where you represent and help me with Linda's house, when we did that, when you first came on board with the Assembly, finding a way or a mechanism to bring that funding down through that organization, Intertribal Council California, because we have a domestic violence team.

As you know, we had a domestic violence safe house. And for a way to find that funding that you guys are working for, for this MMIP to help us spread our wings and to be more open and to help more tribes. Because right now we're working with 64 tribes of the 110 recognized tribes in California, and if we could find a way to get that funding to us to be more spread out. Those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Good day, everybody. I want to say, my name is Fred Beihn, North Fork Rancheria Tribal Chairman. I want to say thank you to the Assembly for hearing everybody today. There were some great comments today, and I want to thank all the leaders who stepped forward and express the things that they have going on.

But I wanted to comment on some of the things I heard today. You know, we're really talking about basic humanity here. We're talking about treating people good, all people good. You know, some of the issues that we're seeing, you know, we're talking about in Indian Country.

You know, we're here as Indian people because, you know, MMIP, it's 10 times as bad as the national average, right? And so it's all things in Indian Country, right? It's our kids in the schools, it's our people in the workplace, it's the businesses. Treating everybody. But this is about missing and murdered. I mean, that's bad.

Everything else we can struggle with and live with, but the missing things, you know, the missing people, that's something that we have to change it here and we got to change it in here. It's a mindset, right? We're talking about, you know, I heard comments about the issue might be on the reservation.

It's not just because it's on the reservation. Sometimes it's in the city, the incident is in the city. That person might be from a reservation. But we're talking because it's Indian people. It's the mindset that because it's native people it's not as important. So that's what's got to change. It's. I heard a little bit about funding.

You know, the comments earlier about the Feather Alert coming a week later. That's not funding, that's push the button. That's up here. You know, that's where we got to change. Everybody's got to change. The community's got to change, you know, laws got to change. We got to be thinking about it and be treating everybody fairly.

And again, that's why we're here as people because we want to say, let you know how important it is that it's neglection on Indian people in all areas. And when it comes to missing and murdered, that's nowhere to neglect. And I just want to say thank you everybody for hearing us all out today. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members. Geoff Neill. I represent a company called Othram that does next generation DNA analysis in particular for MMIP and unidentified minors. Othram, we heard today about the Public Law 280 and how it created an unfunded mandate.

While there's still a lot that the federal government needs to do, there is an allocation through BIA to do forensic genetic genealogy. This next level DNA analysis that was, you know, used, really created to catch the Golden State Killer. It was just created a few years ago.

And there is an allocation through BIA to do that forensic genetic genealogy specifically for MMIP cases funded by the federal government. So Othram, the company I represent, works with tribal governments, works with local sheriffs, and district attorneys not only for MMIP but for all kinds of cold cases and, you know, DNA processing. They're eager to do more.

I think we do need to get the word out a little bit about how much DNA analysis has changed over the last few years. And given the uncertainty of the federal funding, we'd also be interested in working with your office, any of the Committee Members, you know, on a budget request that's circulating for a small pot of $3 million to do forensic genetic genealogy and make those funds available. Othram works with Humboldt County.

They just had an identification of a woman who went missing in the late 80s. Just I think it was yesterday or the day before, they announced it. So working with your office or others on that small budget request to make those services available to local district attorneys and sheriffs. Looking forward to it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Yatch Bamford. I'm the Chairman for the Pit River Tribe of Northern California. And I wanted to take a minute to speak on some of our tribal members that have came missing. Nick Patterson. Nick was a Atwamsini Band member of the Pit River Nation and he was killed in Shasta County.

Pursuing justice became a bureaucratic nightmare. His case spanned multiple counties with conflicting claims over jurisdiction. Local agencies failed to coordinate and provide updates to his family. The Pit River Tribe had to fight for basic information and accountability.

With support from the California State MMIP funding, the Pit River Tribe established its own MMIP Department to track and respond to MMIP cases across its territory. To build legal and advocacy capacity within tribal government, hold local and state agencies accountable to tribal citizens, ensure future tragedies receive a coordinated and timely response.

This is the power of self determination. This is tribal justice in action. And I also wanted to take a minute to thank you for your help with the Eagle Feather response like that. We have actually put it into use, and we found one of our tribal members within a week of putting that response out. So we definitely appreciate that. And we know there is some kinks within it, but it is working. So we definitely appreciate it. Thank you guys for your time.

Thank you so much for your comments. Any other public comment?

Hi. My name is Vice Chair Patricia Miraz, and I'm from Graton Rancheria. My tribe's a restored tribe. This will be our 25th year. But I grew up all through the State of California. And I'm bringing this up because I grew up in Boyle Heights. I went to school in San Bernardino. I went to school in Rialto. I went to school in Colton. I was in Port Hueneme. I was all up and down the State of California, and it was before we were restored.

And the experiences that my family had and the experiences that I had and could have even had that could have been worse all conflict with all hit and come to an intersection with the issues of PL 280. And I just wanted to say that because I think that's important. But when you talk about, you know, some of the things that we need to do and make sure and in your position to make sure that our people are safe and that these things don't continue to happen.