Imagine living in a community that spans millions of acres — but has just two police officers to protect it.
Now imagine being so isolated that cartels and human traffickers see your sisters and daughters as easy targets.
Imagine living where violence isn’t the exception, but the norm — where murder, sexual assault, and domestic violence happen at rates ten times higher than anywhere else nationally.
To make matters worse thousands of murders and missing persons cases — over 5,000 involving Native women and girls — remain unsolved due to a chronic lack of investigative resources.
To most Americans, this is hard to imagine –– but for our friends and neighbors in Indian Country, this isn’t a distant concern — it's their daily reality.
For decades, presidential administrations from both parties turned a blind eye to Indian Country — allowing a persistent crisis to escalate into a full-blown epidemic.
Under President Donald Trump, however, that neglect has finally begun to end.
Last April, under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. Justice Department launched Operation Not Forgotten — the largest deployment of FBI agents and resources ever dedicated to investigating unresolved violent crimes in Indian Country.
"The FBI will manhunt violent criminals on all lands," vowed FBI Director Kash Patel, "and find those who have gone missing."
During a speech at the Justice Department in March — right before the start of the operation, FBI Director Kash Patel said,
"We will work with our state and local partners on all matters affecting tribal lands and Indian reservations to make sure their children are no longer trafficked and that their women are no longer raped or go missing."
At the start of Fiscal Year 2025, the Justice Department reported that the FBI’s Indian Country program was handling around 4,300 open investigations.
These cases include more than 900 deaths, 1,000 instances of child abuse, and over 500 investigations into domestic violence and adult sexual assault.
Operation Not Forgotten builds on the foundation laid during President Trump’s first term with Executive Order 13898, which created the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Now in its third deployment, Operation Not Forgotten has supported investigations in over 500 cases, and these efforts have resulted in the rescue of 10 child victims, 52 arrests, and 25 indictments or judicial complaints.
President Trump campaigned on Making America Great Again and Making America Safe Again.
Unlike any other leader before him, he is fulfilling that promise.
Now, thousands of lives — especially women and children — are being saved from the horrors of violent crime and human trafficking on Indian reservations.
After surviving an assassination attempt, and escaping another, President Trump is now saving countless others.
From 2007-2010, Mark Vargas served as a civilian in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense, traveling to Baghdad, Iraq, 14 times. Follow Mark on Twitter: @markavargas. Read Mark Vargas' Reports — Click Here Now.
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