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The everyday violence of Indian Country’s ‘bordertowns’ In ‘Red Nation Rising,’ violence in the communities abutting reservations illuminates colonialism’s continued presence.

The Arrow Lakes Band is one of many Indigenous communities bisected and disrupted by a border about which they were never consulted.

Supreme Court of Canada affirms trans-boundary Indigenous rights   🠟🠟🠟 #MMIWG

Tribes unveil landmark missing and murdered Indigenous person response

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes worked with federal agencies to complete a first of its kind plan to address the crisis.

By Jessica Douglas

Two years ago, on a February evening, Ellie Bundy attended a tribal working group in Arlee, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Surrounded by local and tribal law enforcement, tribal members and families, Bundy listened as people told stories about loved ones or community members who had gone missing. “What if that were my daughter?” Bundy said. “We say that a lot, but really, what if it were my daughter? What if it were my sister? What if it were my cousins? It is a visual you just can't get out of your head.” The meeting was one of four hosted by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to encourage discussion and come up with local community responses to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Bundy is now a councilwoman for the Salish and Kootenai, as well as the presiding officer of the Montana Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force. For the past five months, she and other tribal officials have participated in a series of working groups with federal, state and local law enforcement and community organizations. On April 1, at a press conference at the tribal headquarters in Pablo, Montana, the Salish and Kootenai joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in announcing the completion of the first Tribal Community Response Plan to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people. As the first plan of its kind to be developed, it will serve as a model that tribal governments across Indian Country can adapt to meet their own specific needs. It marks a critical milestone in the effort to resolve the crisis, something that advocates say must be led by tribal nations and supported by the federal government. The new plan comes at a unique time nationally, after the passage of federal legislation including Savanna’s Act and renewing the Violence Against Women Act, coupled with executive-branch initiatives, such as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s new unit in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which was created specifically to investigate crimes involving missing and murdered Indigenous people.

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Trump's Impact on Indian Country

 “The total onslaught of federal rule rollbacks under environmental laws was like nothing we’ve ever seen. It was dizzying.”

Over the span of his administration, many leadership positions in the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Interior Department were left empty or filled by appointees never vetted by Congress. The annual White House Tribal Nations Conference, held by President Barack Obama for eight years, ceased. Trump’s three Supreme Court justices include one with a solid understanding of federal Indian law and the U.S government’s responsibility to tribes, as well as one whose judicial perspectives are actively harmful.

GOOD READ: Trump’s impact on Indian Country over four years — High Country News – Know the West

Where are they?

Where are the Indigenous children that never came home?

An untold number of students at Carlisle Indian School disappeared. Tribal nations raise the stakes in search of answers.

This story was done in collaboration with

The Intercept.

When Yufna Soldier Wolf was a kid, she was made well aware of why her family members only spoke English, and why they dressed the way they did. Her grandfather and other elders used to recount their experiences at boarding schools, where the government sent hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children, from nearly every Indigenous nation within U.S. borders, to unlearn their languages and cultures. “A lot of them were physically abused, verbally abused, sexually abused,” she said.

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Reprinted and shared with permission.