Ashlynne Mike Amber Alert in Indian Country Act
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 772) to amend the PROTECT Act to make Indian tribes eligible for AMBER Alert grants, as amended.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be a sponsor of the AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act, in memory of the life of Ashlynne Mike.
I want to thank the House leadership and Chairman Goodlatte for bringing this bill before the House for consideration.
Eleven-year-old Ashlynne lived in the Navajo Nation, the largest Indian reservation in the United States, located in four States: Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Her favorite color was yellow, and she enjoyed playing music for her friends and family. She was a kindhearted young girl who had enormous potential.
After school on Monday, May 2, 2016, while Ashlynne and her 9-year- old brother Ian waited and played near the local bus stop, a stranger approached and lured them into his vehicle by offering them a ride home.
He abducted the children and took them to a remote part of the reservation, where he abused Ashlynne, slaughtered her, and left her brother to fend for himself in the desert. Ashlynne died alone.
Ashlynne had been abducted around 4 p.m. Her father filed a missing person report at 6:53 p.m., within 3 hours. Unfortunately, authorities did not send an AMBER Alert until 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday, almost 10 hours after Ashlynne went missing.
According to law enforcement records, Tom Begay, Jr., Ashlynne's perpetrator, admitted that Ashlynne was alive when he left her stranded in the desert.
Mr. Speaker, had Indian Country been included as partners in the AMBER Alert plans, law enforcement might have rescued Ashlynne in time. She might still be alive and with us today.
When a child is abducted, action in those first hours is crucial to their safe return. The AMBER Alert program has proven effective at instantly providing information to the public to assist in the effort.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, of the AMBER Alerts issued in 2016, 94 percent of the recovered children were found within the first 72 hours, including 47 percent who were found within the first 3 hours.
Between 1997 and February 2017, the AMBER Alert program has been credited with the safe recovery of 868 children. AMBER Alerts save lives.
Today, we have the opportunity to ensure all children may benefit from the AMBER Alert program if necessary, no matter where they reside.
This bill will reauthorize the Department of Justice grant program that assists State and local governments in developing and implementing AMBER Alert communications plans. It will explicitly require the Department of Justice to perform a needs assessment of AMBER Alert capabilities on Indian reservations.
It will also, for the first time, require funds be used to integrate Tribal AMBER Alert systems with those of neighboring jurisdictions to ensure that AMBER Alerts reach as many people as swiftly as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I again thank House leadership and Chairman Goodlatte for bringing this bill forward and acknowledging the importance of filling a gap in our AMBER Alert system that might have prevented the death of Ashlynne.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. If enacted, this bill will help to build a truly national and cohesive network of AMBER Alert.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from across the aisle. This bill is truly a bipartisan effort, worked on by Members of both parties. It is because of its importance.
The particular case that both of us have cited today does focus the attention on the massive hole where there are more than 500 Indian Tribes that do not have access to the AMBER Alert system. It is the only part of this Nation and its territories that is not covered by the AMBER Alert system. This will solve that problem.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Source