Tribal Communities Need Support: RM Raskin Calls Out Republicans Inaction

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Welcome to our witnesses and I want to thank the distinguished ranking member of this committee for framing the discussion so well. I just want to add some context. We are now 48 hours away from legislative adjournment of the 119th Congress. So when Thursday comes this will mark a substantive end to this entire Congress which has been historically unproductive as the executive branch visits wreckage on so many parts of the country including Indian country. This hearing is long overdue but it is way too little and it is way too late. Republican majorities controlled this subcommittee for four years. Why are we only having this hearing now at the last possible minute about a problem that's been plaguing Native communities across America for years. As our former colleague Marjorie Taylor Green says people are sick and tired of a feckless useless Republican Party that never does a damn thing. The crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people is not an issue to be politicized and picked up momentarily for electoral purposes. It deserves not only Congress's fleeting attention but our serious intense attention and serious legislative action. This subcommittee has sat passive and silent for nearly two years as the Trump administration has slashed funding to tribal communities and steamrolled their sovereignty. I hope our hearing today will move us to begin a process of taking real action and galvanize the attention of the country. I hope when Congress comes back in November we will work together to debate legislation that will strengthen tribal law enforcement surge funding to prevent. Ongoing violence against indigenous people and put pressure on the administration to give this crisis the attention it deserves. Thank you Mr. Chairman I yield back.