North Dakota Legislature passes law aimed at tackling MMIP crisis

The tribe’s chairwoman, Lonna Street, testified in support of the bill in January during a hearing at the state legislature. “When Jemini and Issac disappeared, there were no emergency alerts, no immediate state assistance, no coordinated response,” she said, adding, “For the Families of the missing, for the families of the murdered, we must do better.”

The new law allocates $250,000 to support the efforts of federally recognized Indian tribes, nations or bands to “identify, report, and find” missing Indigenous people.

The law also establishes a “missing indigenous people task force” that’s charged with identifying jurisdictional barriers, collecting and analyzing data, making recommendations to reduce the number of MMIP cases and creating strategies to improve interagency communication, cooperation and collaboration.

The task force will be chaired by the attorney general and will include the chief of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the superintendent of the North Dakota Highway Patrol and a representative from each federally recognized Indian tribe, nation or band in North Dakota. The Indian Affairs Commission will also be a part of the task force, serving as a connector between state, federal and tribal governments.

It’s well known that the first 72 hours are critical when searching for missing people, yet jurisdictional barriers, lack of real-time communication and limited team resources can waste precious hours, greatly affecting search efforts. While the task force aims to address these issues, the Indian Affairs Commission also sees a need for research, police training and gathering resources, all of which are currently being discussed, according to the commission’s executive director, Brad Hawk.

“It’s really new, so we don’t know exactly how it’s gonna look,” Hawk said of the task force. “We plan to get research from other states that are doing this kind of task force and see what would work for North Dakota.”