As Trump administration floods the zone to combat crime in Indian Country, wariness prevails

MORTON, MINN. – Sitting on a bench surrounded by Lower Sioux Community members, Ana Negrete presented two industrial-sized bins to the tribe’s leaders in a somber exchange.

“I hope this helps,” Negrete said quietly, gesturing at black crates filled with items she wishes they‘d never have to use: tools to help find missing Indigenous people.

Negrete leads the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) Office, a first-of-its-kind effort to address the disproportionately high rates of violent crime against Indigenous people. The kits delivered this month are part of a broader strategy involving tribal, local and state resources — and now, a promised surge in federal reinforcements.

Last month, the Trump administration announced it would boost the FBI’s “Operation Not Forgotten” with more agents to swarm Indian Country, including in Minnesota, in the “longest and most intense national deployment” of FBI investigators to date aimed at solving crimes against Indigenous people. In Minnesota, the pledge is prompting hope — but also deep skepticism. Some question whether the government will follow through on its promises; others wonder if the long-term solution has to come from within, given that many crimes involve victims and perpetrators from the same community.

“It’s a bit ironic actually. It’s no secret that the Native American community in Minnesota is highly critical of President [Donald] Trump,” said Irene Folstrom, a former Department of Public Safety tribal relations director who worked with the MMIR Office.

The latest phase of Operation Not Forgotten will see a boost of agents, totaling 60, the third deployment since the initiative began in 2023. Last year, there were closer to 50.

“The additional resources from Operation Not Forgotten along with our continued partnership with local, state, federal, and tribal agencies will bolster the efforts of our dedicated personnel to bring cases closer to resolution,” said Alvin Winston Sr., special agent in charge of Minneapolis’ FBI office.

The operation was created after the start of the federal government’s Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, which Trump established in his first term through an executive order.

Since its start, Operation Not Forgotten has helped with more than 500 cases resulting in 52 arrests and 25 charges, according to the Department of Justice.

The FBI will partner with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal law enforcement agencies. Cases will be referred to U.S. Attorney’s Offices for prosecution.

Officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota said the operation supplements their efforts in recent years to prosecute crimes and “better serve” Indian Country, including opening an office in Duluth. An assistant U.S. attorney has been placed in the Duluth office and a victim witness specialist in Bemidji.

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office remains deeply committed to pursuing justice for our tribal communities,” said acting U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick. “We are grateful to the Department of Justice for their commitment to Operation Not Forgotten and its surge of much-needed FBI resources to our tribal lands.”

Agents have been stationed in Minneapolis and Bemidji for years as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Missing and Murdered Unit.

Shawn Carr, an advocate in Duluth who’s held annual news conferences for Sheila St. Clair since her disappearance in 2015, said missing persons cases in particular are a multifaceted issue. But the extra national resources “definitely helps,” Carr said.

However, for each case solved, or yet to be solved after years of searching, more missing person reports are filed.

Beyond the influx of FBI agents, Negrete hopes the bins she’s sent to tribes will supplement search efforts across the state.

The kits are filled with a range of materials, from the practical (marking flags), to the technical (handheld GPS map) to the spiritual (sage). The office has now given out four kits to tribes across Minnesota, reserving one for the MMIR Office.

The rate of missing and murdered Indigenous people remains elevated: While the community makes up 1% of Minnesota’s population, it comprises nearly 9% of missing person cases. The MMIR Office reports having 20 active missing person and homicides cases. Last year, 10 people whose missing person cases were filed to the office were found.

About 4% of people killed in Minnesota last year were Indigenous, the office’s latest data show. This year, there’s been more high-profile violence: A member of the Native gang is accused of shooting five Indigenous people, four fatally, earlier this month.

Negrete said the need for the kits became apparent during a search for a 47-year-old man who went missing in November 2022 in the area of the Mille Lacs Reservation.

The snow reached the waists of the search party. Sharp tree branches got in their way.

“We just weren’t prepared,” Negrete recalled.

The office provided its first kit to the Mille Lacs Band following the search. Each cost $13,000, totaling $65,000 for the five kits.

To Negrete, the kits provide a tangible solution to a problem that can quickly become bogged down by bureaucracy and jurisdictional snafus. The MMIR Office has just four staffers, she said, making conducting searches across the state difficult.

Negrete acknowledges the kits aren’t a cure-all, but hopes they provide a balm to families whose only path forward is to scour the land for any clue.

“Searching is a way for them to actively do something at a time when they feel powerless,” Negrete said.

Some remain critical of state and federal efforts, saying they can be seen as performative instead of real boots-on-the-ground work.

Those critics also say it’s up to people, often within the Indigenous community, to stop withholding information on active cases.

“It‘s time for people to start opening up and holding your own relatives accountable,” said Lissa Yellow Bird-Chase, who founded in 2013 the Sahnish Scouts, a grassroots effort responding to disappearances of people in the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota where she lives.

“As long as we keep blaming the white guys or the oil field people or whatever, then that makes an excuse for us not to look at ourselves,” said Yellow Bird-Chase, 56, a member of the Arikara tribe.

Her independent work brings her to place across the country helping Indigenous families find loved ones, including her own.

She recently spent a week in Bemidji knocking on doors and tracking down information on Nevaeh Kingbird, who was 15 when she went missing in 2021, and Jeremy Jourdain, who was 17 when he disappeared in 2016.

The Native teens went missing from the same neighborhood in Bemidji that Yellow Bird-Chase searched with her two golden retriever cadaver dogs. She’s done this before over the years, along with searches on the Red Lake and White Earth reservations.

But investigations stalled after the recent quadruple fatal shooting. She left Bemidji to help another family in South Dakota and allow time for Minnesota to mourn.

“This might be the eye opener that people need,” she said.

Yellow Bird-Chase wants to see more searches instead of marches. Instead of gathering masses to protest and giving out signs to hold, she said groups of volunteers should be given neon vests and sent to knock on doors, areas to comb.

Agencies tasked with solving cases are duplicating services, yet not producing results, Yellow-Bird Chase said.

In 2021, the same year the state’s MMIR Office began, BIA started a Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU). The unit has two agents in its Minneapolis field office and one agent in Bemidji. MMU has five active cases in Minnesota, including Kingbird and Jourdain.

The MMIR Office is given $774,000 from the state, an increase from $500,000 at its inception. The office also generated $92,000 in revenue from the sale of nearly 3,500 special MMIR license places, money that will be steered into the reward fund once it launches.

But Folstrom and Yellow Bird-Chase are critical of the MMIR Office still not having rewards for information from the public.

Folstrom, who is enrolled in the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and considers Jourdain a relative, said it’s unclear how the office is measuring outcomes of its work.

“Show the intended beneficiaries what the results are,” she said, “because we’re out here looking around and not seeing any.”

Negrete countered that the search kits are just “one piece of the puzzle,” and the root causes behind the missing and murdered Indigenous person epidemic “are complex and require a complex response.”

“The MMIR Office has a staff of four to serve the entire state and we do this work alone. The families cannot do it alone. Even law enforcement cannot do it alone,” she said.

Yellow Bird-Chase said Operation Not Forgotten has potential, but she’s “not impressed until I’m impressed.”

Federal agents need to build rapport and trust in Native communities to counteract a historically fraught relationship.

“We’re in a Stockholm relationship with the government,” she said.