On March 31, 2022, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed into law the nation’s first Indigenous Alert for missing Native Americans. The alert will send messages to law enforcement, news agencies, social media, and electronic highway signs. The alert is designed to address a much needed and improved response to the high rate of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Women in some Tribal communities face a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average, according to the Department of Justice. Additional efforts are underway to help indigenous communities from the DOJ’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force, which is led by the Washington Attorney General’s Office.
