New Mexico passes bill to provide 'turquoise' safety alert when Indigenous people go missing

[cbabe]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/new-mexico-turquoise-alert-1.7490125

New Mexico passes bill to provide 'turquoise' safety alert when Indigenous people go missing

Bill is in response to high rates of disappearances and killings

The Associated Press · Posted: Mar 21, 2025 12:56 PM PDT | Last Updated: March 21

A bill that would create a "turquoise" safety alert system for missing Native Americans in New Mexico has been endorsed by the state legislature.

A vote of the state Senate without opposition Thursday sent the rapid response initiative to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who supports the proposal.

The bill responds to a troubling number of disappearances and killings in Indian Country and would allow law enforcement to quickly share information about Native Americans who go missing.

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California, Washington and Colorado have similar alert systems, according to the New Mexico Department of Indian Affairs. Arizona lawmakers are considering their own alert system as the brutal death of San Carlos Apache teenager Emily Pike reverberates through Native American communities.

… more …

[Clouds Passing]

1. Glad NM legislature passed it. Needed to be done!

[GiqueCee]

2. It is common knowledge...

... that non-native intruders onto reservations victimize Native American girls and women with impunity because Tribal Police can't prosecute them, and other law enforcement agencies are slow to respond to such cases, if they respond at all. Maybe this travesty will change, but Native American communities can be forgiven if they're more than a little bit cynical about the chances of that.

[cbabe]

3. Impact of the Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta Ruling

NBC
https://www.nbc.com › nbc-insider › found-how-does-tribal-law-works-on-indian-reservations

How Does Tribal Law Works on Indian Reservations? An Expert Weighs In - NBC

Nov 14, 2023Under the 2022 ruling, federal, tribal and state governments now have the ability to prosecute cases where a non-Native person

…

Impact of the Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta Ruling

For hundreds of years, state and local law enforcement agencies had no rights to prosecute cases that occurred on tribal lands, but the recent, and controversial, US Supreme Court ruling in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta has given state governments the ability to prosecute certain cases.

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Under the 2022 ruling, federal, tribal and state governments now have the ability to prosecute cases where a non-Native person committed a crime on tribal land against a Native person. The ruling seemingly removes jurisdictional boundaries that had long been in place, according to NBC News.

“As a matter of state sovereignty, a State has jurisdiction over all of its territory, including Indian country,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

The ruling, which overturned nearly 200 years of recognizing the tribal lands ability to self-govern, has drawn criticism from tribal leaders who worry it could further erode tribes’ abilities to govern their own people.

“As a citizen of a tribal nation, I feel violated,” Elizabeth Reese, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School and a citizen of the Nambé Pueblo, told NBC News last year after the decision. “After fighting for our own independence, and then negotiating this shared situation with the federal government for so long, it’s just an erosion of our ability to be the governments that we are.”

According to Fletcher, although state and local agencies may now have more authority to investigate and pursue cases on tribal lands, they often don’t have the resources to do so.

“State and local governments tend not to come on the reservation simply because they don’t have the resources to do it,” he said.

… more …

[GiqueCee]

4. I'm glad to see...

... that something was finally done to rectify this situation.
Thanks for the information.

On Edit: On first reading, I misinterpreted some of this! Hadn't had my coffee yet. Leave it to SCROTUS to piss in the punch bowl.