{"id":135481,"date":"2025-04-16T14:49:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T19:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/?p=135481"},"modified":"2025-04-16T14:49:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T19:49:03","slug":"new-mexico-in-depth-turquoise-alert-system-established-for-missing-relatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2025\/04\/16\/new-mexico-in-depth-turquoise-alert-system-established-for-missing-relatives\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico In Depth: \u2018Turquoise Alert\u2019 system established for missing relatives"},"content":{"rendered":" \"Angel<\/a>
From left, Sen. Angel Charley, D-Acoma, and Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta, D-To\u2019hajiilee, prepare to introduce Senate Bill 41, creating a Turquoise Alert system, on February 7, 2025. Photo: Bella Davis \/ New Mexico In Depth<\/figcaption>\r\n
New Mexico set to create \u2018Turquoise Alert\u2019 system for missing Indigenous people<\/div>\r\n
Wednesday, April 16, 2025<\/div>\r\n
By Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth, Source New Mexico<\/a> <\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

New Mexico is set to become the fourth state to create an alert system meant to help find Native Americans who have gone missing. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham plans to sign\u00a0Senate Bill 41<\/a>\u00a0into law, establishing a Turquoise Alert system, according to her office, after the bill passed both chambers of the Legislature unanimously.<\/p>

Operating much like the state\u2019s Amber Alert system for abducted children, Turquoise Alerts would be issued for people who are enrolled in or eligible for enrollment in a federally or state-recognized tribe and are missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstances or are at heightened risk due to health concerns or disabilities.<\/p>

Colorado, California and Washington have established similar alerts. Since Washington\u2019s system was created in 2022, 114 alerts had gone out as of August last year, and 111 of those people were located, Oregon Public Broadcasting\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\t

\t
This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth<\/div>\t<\/div>\t

Lawmakers in New Mexico have passed a couple other bills in recent years responding to a national crisis of Indigenous people disproportionately going missing and being killed. There are 186 Indigenous people missing from the state,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the state Department of Justice, and the average number of days missing is 1,662, or about four and a half years.<\/p>

The alert is especially needed on reservations, where jurisdictional confusion and understaffed law enforcement agencies are major obstacles to public safety, said Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta (Din\u00e9), a Democrat from To\u2019hajiilee and one of the bill\u2019s sponsors.<\/p>

\u201cWhen someone goes missing, we\u2019re combining our own resources outside of law enforcement and any actual government-run entity to try to locate our missing loved ones,\u201d Abeyta said Monday in an interview. \u201cWe know how important this is and how the lack of resources just isn\u2019t fair for us and the jurisdictional issues that get in the way. It\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>

In the \u201890s, when she was a child, Abeyta\u2019s mother went missing. She was taken to a remote area and \u201cbeaten and left to die,\u201d Abeyta said, before being found a few days later by a person who happened to be in the area. She was brought to a hospital and survived, but her recovery was difficult.<\/p>\r\n\"MMIWR<\/a>

Indigenous families with loved ones who have gone missing or been murdered protest outside Albuquerque City Hall on July 21, 2023. Photo: Bella Davis \/ New Mexico In Depth<\/figcaption>\r\n

<\/P>\r\n

Abeyta and her co-sponsor Sen. Angel Charley (Laguna\/Zuni\/Din\u00e9), D-Acoma, are \u201cexcited to see how this is going to help improve the lives of so many families that for a long time needed some type of solution, some type of resource to go to,\u201d Abeyta said.<\/p>

While helping solve logistical barriers, the alert system would also raise awareness about the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people, Charley said in an interview Friday.<\/p>

Charley, who used to be the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, referenced Ashlynne Mike, an 11-year-old Din\u00e9 girl who was kidnapped and murdered in northwestern New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation, in 2016. Law enforcement didn\u2019t issue an Amber Alert until the day after she went missing due to \u201cmisunderstandings and jurisdictional hurdles,\u201d\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the Justice Department.<\/p>

\u201cYou never know if coordination would have happened in a way that was quick and efficient\u201d if there had been greater awareness at the time, Charley said. After lawmakers passed the bill last week, Ashlynne\u2019s father contacted Charley, telling her he was going to write to Lujan Grisham and urge her to sign it.<\/p>

\u201cWe do not want other families to go through the trauma we felt,\u201d he wrote in a message Charley shared with New Mexico In Depth with his permission.<\/p>

Indigenous advocates, tribal leaders and police, and lobbyists representing several pueblos also spoke in support of the bill during the session.<\/p>

The bill requires the Department of Public Safety to develop a plan for getting alerts out as quickly as possible and keeping records on each alert, with information including the municipality where the missing person report was made, the date the alert was issued and the date the missing person is recovered.<\/p>

\u201cToo many Native American families have faced crisis and the heartbreak of a loved one disappearing without the swift response they deserve,\u201d Indian Affairs Secretary Josett Monette, whose agency developed the bill, said in a statement. \u201cThe Turquoise Alert system is a critical step forward in ensuring that missing Native American people are prioritized in the same way as other emergency alerts.\u201d<\/p>

The alert aligns with a\u00a0state response plan<\/a>\u00a0issued by a task force in 2022, Monette told lawmakers last month.<\/p>

That now-defunct task force discussed an alert system for missing Indigenous people, said Darlene Gomez, a task force member and attorney who represents affected families. Gomez suggested that New Mexico should create such an alert during public comment at a December meeting of a\u00a0new state task force<\/a>\u00a0focused on the crisis.<\/p>