By Debra Utacia Krol | Arizona Republic
Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton admonished U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland for his lack of progress in addressing the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and persons.
Stanton’s words echoed a new report by the Government Accountability Office on the government’s response to the large numbers of Native women, girls, boys and men who have gone missing or whose murder cases languish in cold case files over several decades. The report found that the Justice Department could be doing more to address the issue and to fulfill the directives of two recently passed bills.
“It does not appear that you have used your platform to help make this a top priority, nor has the Department of Justice really moved the needle on this issue since your confirmation,” Stanton, D-Ariz., told Garland during a meeting of the House Committee on the Judiciary in October.
