Amid widespread terminations of its employees, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is trying to put the focus back on a critical issue facing tribes and their communities.

In a news release on Thursday, the BIA announced the launch of “Operation Spirit Return.” The project seeks to identify the remains of loved ones and reunite them with family members and their tribal nations.

“The crisis of American Indians and Alaska Natives gone missing or who have been murdered, but whose cases remained unsolved, has been decades in the making, and we are committed to ending it,” BIA Director Bryan Mercier said in the release.

“Thanks to the BIA Missing and Murdered Unit and its partners, our Operation Spirit Return initiative will help return missing relatives to their families, so that they can be comforted knowing their loved ones have come home,” said Mercier.

The BIA is tying the initiative to Operation Lady Justice, which began in 2019, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. The administration of then-president Joe Biden expanded on the work by creating the Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU) in 2021 to investigate cases of missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“Each member of the Missing and Murdered Unit is dedicated to combatting the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis,” BIA Deputy Bureau Director for Justice Services Richard “Glen” Melville said of the MMU’s work.

“With our partners in federal law enforcement and the genetic research community, we are striving to make a meaningful impact for the tribal families and communities who have been left for years with unanswered questions about those who went missing,” added Melville, who leads the BIA Office of Justice Service. “Operation Spirit Return’s focus is on identifying these victims and sending them home, and we are actively engaged in achieving that result.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs sent out its first press release of the Donald Trump administration, announcing "Operation Spirit Return" to help solve missing and unidentified person cases in Indian Country. @USIndianAffairs @BureauIndAffrs #MMIW #MMIP pic.twitter.com/EB5rvYqhUJ

— indianz.com (@indianz) February 20, 2025

The BIA’s federal partners include NamUs, also known as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Following concerns raised by tribes and Native women, the Department of Justice has been working to improve access to the database and address gaps that hindered proper identification of missing and murdered cases in Indian Country.

And in a new development, the BIA is turning to cutting-edge technology. Following work that began under former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who was the first Native person to serve in a presidential cabinet, the MMU has brought on a genetic genealogy company called Othram to help identify the remains of loved ones believed to be American Indian or Alaska Native.

“Answers are now possible for everyone, regardless of circumstances, historical origins, geography, or time period,” David Mittelman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Texas-based Othram, said of its partnership with the federal government.

“We are honored to assist the Bureau of Indian Affairs in leveraging advanced forensic technology to resolve long-standing cases and deliver justice,” Mittelman said in a company news release on Thursday.

Othram has already helped bring some answers to the family of Michelle Elbow Shield after she went missing from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in September 2023. Her relatives were informed last week that remains recently recovered belong to the young woman known to her loved ones as “Shelly.”

“My sister was the kindest, gentlest person to all who knew her. She was our spark of sunshine in our lives,” family member Rena Returns From Scout said in a February 14 social media post shared by the Oglala Sioux Tribe Victim Services Program.

The BIA turned to Othram in order to identify the remains of a Native woman that were discovered on the reservation in January. Due to the condition of the body, additional work was needed to confirm who they belonged to.

Honored that Othram could assist the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit & Rapid City Police Department in identifying a 2025 Jane Doe as Michelle Elbow Shield. #dnasolveshttps://t.co/eLVL2HW8QE

— Othram Inc. (@OthramTech) February 14, 2025

According to Kristen Mittelman, Chief Business Development Officer at Othram, the company utilized advanced technology to develop a genetic profile of the woman. During the course of the investigation, a potential relative was identified — and that person provided a DNA sample that was used to confirm Elbow Shield’s identity.

“We have built methods that are more sensitive and allow us to be able to get an answer on someone’s identity even when other methods have failed,” Mittelman, who has a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology, said in an interview on Thursday. “That’s really important to us because we feel like everyone deserves their name back and their identity back.”

“No one should be left nameless because they were the victim of a crime,” said Mittelman, whose company launched in late 2018.

The identification of Elbow Shield through DNA testing represents the first publicly announced case of its kind for the BIA. It’s also unique in that her recovery was recent, marking a difference from the some of the cold cases that the federal agency has been trying to resolve through the MMU.

“When we first started, we worked mostly cold cases and now we’re working a lot of contemporary cases,” Mittelman told Indianz.Com.

“And we’re able to, you know, help identify these perpetrators and get them off the street before they commit that next crime, which is huge because you’re protecting that next victim from from becoming a victim,” Mittelman said.

Mittelman also pointed out that Elbow Shield’s case isn’t the first time that Othram identified a Native person through DNA methods. Working with family members and law enforcement from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with a genealogist from the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, the company was able to ensure Blaine Has Tricks returned to his home community in North Dakota — some 45 years after he went missing.

“We worked with tribal law enforcement to actually get to this answer,” Mittelman said of Hat Tricks, whose body had gone unidentified for decades after being discovered in Washington state in September 1977.

We helped Snohomish County investigators detemine Marysville Landfill Doe is Blaine Has Tricks, who was born May 31, 1939 and was 38 years old when he went missing in Seattle. Massive thanks to @audiochuck, who funded the work!https://t.co/eXKnIUoxi6#dnasolves #runtheDNA

— Othram Inc. (@OthramTech) June 16, 2022

Similar to Elbow Shield’s case, relatives of Has Tricks provided DNA samples that Othram used to confirm the identity of their loved one, who was 38 years old when he went missing from Standing Rock. That participation, combined with the company’s genetic methods, are key to providing the answers that families have long been looking for.

“People need to understand what’s out there and what’s possible so that they can be a part of it,” Mittelman said.

The BIA did not respond on Thursday to an inquiry about Operation Spirit Return and the resources being dedicated to the effort. In its news release, the agency said the Missing and Murdered Unit is “actively investigating” 15 cases across Indian Country, including in Alaska.

But the announcement comes as the Department of the Interior, the federal agency with the most trust and treaty responsibilities, has been ordered by President Trump to terminate countless numbers of employees throughout the nation. Tribes and their advocates call the unprecedented action a breach of the federal government’s obligations to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

“Because of our unique relationship with the United States, federal employees are an indispensable part of public health and safety across Indian Country, among other critical services,” said President Kirk Francis of the United South and Eastern Tribes. “The loss of these employees, coupled with the continued suspension of vital federal funding, will result in devastating impacts to Indian Country,”

“In the strongest possible terms, we call upon the Trump Administration to immediately stop its assault on Tribal Nations and instead work with us to ensure our interests are protected as further policy is implemented,” said Francis, who serves as Chief of the Penobscot Nation, headquartered in Maine.

According to testimony provided to Congress in November 2024, the BIA filled 38 positions at the MMU. At the time, the Biden administration said it was requesting $16.5 million in appropriations to address the “crisis” of missing and murdered people in Indian Country.

The amount was just a small piece of the $651.2 million being requested for public safety in Indian Country. But even that figure is a far cry from the nearly $3.5 billion that the BIA admits is needed to fulfill its trust and treaty obligations.

“Overall, Indian country BIA public safety and justice is funded at just under 13% of total need and an additional 25,655 personnel are required to adequately serve Indian country,” the agency said in a report provided to Congress last year.

But Indian Country can’t count on Trump to address the shortfalls in public safety. Through an initiative known as Department of Government Efficiency, the 47th president of the United States, is seeking to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce — with no stated exceptions for the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Education or the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, all of which are part of Interior.

“Without the necessary staff to fulfill federal obligations, Indigenous communities will face the loss of vital services, meaning services for law enforcement, tribal courts, natural resource management, education, firefighters, and road maintenance. These are services that are critical for any community to function effectively,” Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) said in a letter on Thursday to Doug Burgum, the recently-confirmed Secretary of the Interior.

Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota, appeared before tribal leaders publicly for the first time last Wednesday. Despite speaking for 45 minutes, he did not bring up the employee terminations that began to spread throughout the BIA later in the week.

“I know we’ve got a responsibility at Interior,” Burgum said in remarks at the executive council winter session of the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C.

“We can do a better job of trying to understand what information you’re getting,” Burgum told NCAI. “And we can be a source of information to help, you know, reduce the fear and focus on what we can do together to work on.”

During his lengthy speech, Burgum also did not bring up William “Billy” Kirkland, a citizen of the Navajo Nation who has been tapped by Trump to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, a political position at Interior. The department’s media team has not responded to a request for comment about the nomination.

The government efficiency work is overseen by Elon Musk, a foreign-born business executive who has been characterized as an employee of the White House. He was not subjected to the confirmation process that members of the presidential cabinet like Burgum, as well as other nominees like Kirkland, must go through in the U.S. Senate.

The doge.gov website so far contains limited information about the supposed efficiencies underway at the Office of Indian Affairs within Interior. Workforce data for the BIA, for example, is non-existent as of late Thursday.