Illustration depicting South Dakota Feather Alert

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 combat the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, said Davis, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. “This is not just a Tribal issue—it is a North Dakota issue, and it is our responsibility to act,” Davis noted in pushing the measure forward. The Feather Alert would only be activated at the state level after meeting strict criteria, comparable to an AMBER Alert, in which the missing person is believed to be in danger and there is information about the vehicle, person, or abductor. California is currently the only state with a Feather Alert. In addition to the new alert, North Dakota lawmakers have also been considering a measure to create a task force designed to fill communication gaps among Tribal, federal, state, and local agencies.

Judi gaiashkibos, Ponca Tribe member and director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs

Reported cases of missing Indigenous people in Nebraska have nearly doubled—from 23 in 2020 to 43 in 2024. Those figures come roughly five years after the Nebraska State Patrol (NSP) was tasked with studying and producing recommendations to curb the disproportionate rate at which Indigenous children and women go missing. Officials believe the increased number of missing Indigenous people reveals a more accurate picture of the crisis, one stemming from NSP efforts to include race in missing persons reports. Although critics question why the agency’s landmark study—on which other states have modeled theirs—has seen few recommended actions implemented, others say change is happening. “Progress is not as fast as I would always like it to be, but I do believe we are making progress,” said Judi gaiashkibos, a citizen of the Ponca Tribe and director of the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs, which worked with the NSP on the report.