President Donald Trump has been on a DEI purge since taking office — removing almost any content that remotely resembles support for diversity from government websites. Many aspects of life, from science to performing arts, have been affected. Now, to be sure, I expected a lot of vital data to disappear under the DEI banner. I did not expect the removal of data concerning murder and missing persons.
The Trump administration has purged the Not Invisible Act Commission’s final report — which included vital information about Missing and Murdered Indigenous People — from federal webpages. The Not Invisible Act was signed into law by Trump back in 2020, requiring the federal government to investigate the disproportionate rates of murder and missing persons within Indigenous communities. Composed of tribal officials, police personnel, members of the Department of Justice and family members of MMIP victims and survivors, the Not Invisible Act Commission spent eighteen months interviewing Indigenous community members across the country about MMIP. In the final report released in November 2023, the Commission found that the U.S. government was inadequately funding tribal governments and needed to reaffirm its commitment to protecting Indigenous people. The report also highlighted poor communication between federal agencies, which further contributed to the crisis.
MMIP has been an Indigenous issue for decades, sometimes referred to as a “modern form of genocide.” Murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women, and the murder rate for Indigenous women on reservations is ten times higher than the national average. Eighty-two percent of Indigenous men have experienced violence in their lifetime. These numbers are shocking and unacceptable.
The overarching message of the final report is clear: “There is a lack of available data at all levels of government but especially at the national level to ascertain the extent of the problem.” Now that Trump has scrubbed the report from federal databases, Indigenous people are invisible again. Not only are they invisible, but their murders are too. They could be missing and the U.S. government wouldn’t give a damn.
However, the Trump administration is extraordinarily inconsistent on this issue. Press releases about the final report and MMIP published on the official websites of the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Justice all include messages stating that they have been archived and their content rescinded due to DEI guidelines. Yet, the Department of Justice/Department of the Interior joint response to the Not Invisible Commission still remains publicly available. This inconsistency says the quiet part out loud: Addressing the MMIP crisis is acceptable, but acknowledging the national government’s failure to act is not.
The removal of the Not Invisible Act Commission's final report is not simply a DEI issue. It seems more like an active attempt to hide information that could lead to criticisms of the U.S. government — a method authoritarian governments commonly use. But erasing the documents from federal sources doesn’t erase reality. Indigenous people have already preserved the final report through online platforms. If anything, the Trump administration’s decision to conceal this information only further underscores its culpability in the MMIP crisis.
The irony of making the Not Invisible Act Commission invisible is not lost on me. It’s alarming, disturbing and directly in line with the overall trajectory of this administration. However, Indigenous people will never be completely invisible.
