Issue 62

Our Spring 2025 edition focuses on this year’s National AMBER Alert & AMBER Alert in Indian Country Symposium in Washington, D.C. Our feature story gives you a look into the event, where child protection professionals from across the U.S.—even as far away as American Samoa—weighed in on compelling child-recovery cases, emerging trends and technology, capacity-building strategies, new resources, and more. Also learn about Minnesota’s first Tribal AMBER Alert, which led to the safe recovery of a 3-year-old boy. Hear the latest from Tennessee AMBER Alert Coordinator Shelly Smitherman. And get up to speed on child protection headlines from across the U.S., Indian Country, and around the world.

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Features

Overview of slideshow images from the 2025 National AMBER Alert & AMBER Alert in Indian Country Symposium in Washington, D.C.

Team AMBER 2025: Symposium Takeaways

Child protection professionals from the U.S. and its territories—even as far away as American Samoa—traveled to Washington, D.C., to fortify [..]

Photo illustration showing Ethan Stately, Red Lake Nation, and type of vehicle he was found in

Triumph Amid Tragedy

Minnesota’s first Tribal AMBER Alert [..]

Photo of Shelly Smitherman alongside the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation seal

Take 5 With TBI’s AAC

Five years ago this spring [..]

U.S. Briefs

TikTok now sharing AMBER Alerts nationwide

TikTok is teaming up with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring critical, time-sensitive information directly to people’s “For You” feeds. The goal is to raise awareness of missing children and leverage the power of the U.S. TikTok community to help reunite missing children with their families. The project was piloted [..]

Ohio group to study investigation process

Ohio law enforcement authorities, child advocates, and family members who have or had missing loved ones are teaming up on a newlycreated Missing Persons Working Group. Ohio Governor MikeDeWine tasked the group with reviewing the state’s resources and response to cases of missing children and adults. “The ultimate goal here is to bring more missing [..]

AMBER Alert scam claims to ‘register’ children

A phone scam in which callers pose as “AMBER Alert representatives” and offer to “register” children has prompted a firm warning to the public from the California Highway Patrol (CHP). “This is NOT how AMBER Alerts work!” CHP posted in a social media alert. Fraudsters contact parents with an offer to “register” their children in [..]

Indian Country Briefs

California mandate seeks collection and sharing of data about crimes on Tribal lands

A new measure will require law enforcement authorities in California to collect and provide information on crimes that occur on Native American lands. Under the mandate signedby Governor Gavin Newsom, the data must be provided to the California Department of Justice to help better address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis and collaboratively [..]

North Dakota lawmakers push for Feather Alert for Indigenous missing persons

Noting that eight Indigenous youth under the age of 18 had gone missing in the first five weeks of 2025, North Dakota Representative Jayme Davis introduced a bill urging state lawmakers to pass a Feather Alert to help safely recover missing persons from Tribal communities. The alert would be “another tool in our toolbox” to [..]

New law to allow funding for Montana Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force

In 2019, the Montana Legislature created the Montana Missing Indigenous Persons Task Force. The effort brought together Tribal representatives with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials to address the disproportionately high number of missing or murdered Indigenous children and adults. But ever since its creation, the task force has not had a way to [..]

International Briefs

South Africa: Missing children’s cases rise

More than 2,000 children were reported missing in South Africa in the past three years in what some authorities say appears to be signaling a disturbing trend. Missing Children South Africa, a nongovernmental organization that assists police in missing persons cases, says the number of missing children is likely even higher, with many incidents, particularly [..]

New system thwarts international abductions

A newly implemented system that links databases is being credited with helping combat international child abductions. In one case, two missing children were safely recovered at the Islamabad, Pakistan, airport in an apparent abduction by a noncustodial parent. Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) emigration database that was linked with Interpol’s global Integrated Border Management System [..]

Missing U.S. siblings safely recovered in Iceland

“The collaboration of effort in this case can’t be overstated.” So said U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott of an international search that led to the safe recovery of two missing children located in Iceland, some 3,000 miles away from their Ohio home. A family member who reported the 8- and 9-year-old missing in October 2024 indicated [..]

AMBER Advocate Magazine