Click here to watch Senator Barrasso’s remarks.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Earlier this week, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) delivered the following remarks at a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing on legislation to improve safety in tribal communities.

Senator Barrasso’s remarks:

“It goes without saying, but I want to underscore the importance of today’s discussion.

“The bills that we’re discussing here today seek to address a problem so horrifying that often,
it’s hard to know where to begin.

“This committee has heard time and again from families whose loved ones never came home,
stories of lives irreparably changed by a violent act.

“Murder, rape, kidnapping, domestic violence, and human trafficking affect women and children in Indian Country at astonishing and unacceptable levels.

“And those are just the cases that we know about.

“In 2016, the Department of Justice issued a report that said that four out of five American Indian and Alaska Native men and women have experienced violence at least once in their lives.

“But we know that the vast majority of these crimes are personal, difficult to discuss, and often do go unreported.

“As then-chairman and ranking member of this committee, Senator Tester and I requested that the GAO study human trafficking and violence in Indian Country.

“When the GAO issued their reports in 2018, they found that of 6,100 investigations and 1,000 prosecutions for human trafficking in the United States during the years of 2013 to 2016, only 14 investigations and only two federal prosecutions involved an American Indian or Alaska Native individual.

“I said it then, and I’ll say it now – I do not believe that there were that few cases involving tribal members.

“Nobody in this room believes that.

“I believe violent crimes like human trafficking are under-reported, under-investigated, and under-prosecuted.

“This is not a new problem.

“For years, this committee has heard story after story of women and children who disappear without a trace. Who are raped with no justice is carried out for them. Whose families may never know what became of their son, their daughter, their sister, or their mother.

“Access to data about the scope of the problem has challenged this committee, it’s challenged the Department of Justice, and it’s challenged the Department of the Interior, and it’s challenged tribes for decades.

“The bills we are discussing today seek to address those reporting, data sharing, and data access issues.

“I look forward to the testimony about how those bills can be used – and how they can improve.

“I would also raise one other issue – many tribal communities need more law enforcement officials. They need more boots on the ground.

“In Wyoming, the Wind River Police Department has long struggled with an effort to fill all of their positions.

“There are times when all positions are filled – on paper – but officers may be detailed to other reservations, or in training, or on some other assignment.

“The Wind River is 2.2 million acres. That’s 3,500 square miles – larger than the state of Delaware.

“Sometimes, there are as few as 10 or 15 officers on the ground to patrol that area.

“Response times and public safety suffer when officers may have to travel 45 minutes in order to reach an emergency.

“Law enforcement officers have high-stress jobs and when so many positions are vacant or inactive, leave and sick days are not an option. So burnout is a serious concern.

“Not only do these officers and these departments need access to the information – they need to have the capacity to do something with it.

“As we hear this testimony today, we must listen to these witnesses, hear their suggestions,
and work to implement them.

“I look forward to working with the members of this committee to ensure the next several years are not filled with studies or stories.”

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