Why so many UID Hispanic and Native American females?

future criminologist

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there seems to be a disproportionate number of unidentified hispanic and native american females.

anyone have any theories as to why this is?
 
May UID hispanics may be in this country illegally and their families don't know they aren't just working and out of touch. One theory.

I don't know about the Native American UID's.
 
well I figured as much with Hispanic females...that maybe a percentage of them were illegal and therefore had no documentation in this country...and therefore make a good victim for a perp, becuase no one will be looking for them.

still unsure about NA females though...I would think that on a reservation everyone knows everyone and someone going missing would be immediately noticed. I don't know though.
 
Thank you for starting this thread; i have wondered the same thing so many times. When i was doing researching a few years back the lists were so long for those missing; especially in the midwest;CA;TX of Hispanic and First Nation (Native American) peoples.
 
Definitely, definitely because of aliases and lack of info in US databases if they've stayed out of trouble. Plus, not all of them have families here in the US that could alert people back home. Heck, I'm not even sure their countries have the capacity to keep a missing persons database.

My husband crossed without inspection 10 years ago (don't worry, everyone, we're doing the legal process now and have been going through getting his papers for 16 months now with still no end in sight). I've visited him twice in his country, El Salvador, over the past year that he's been there and they keep records of people in leather bound books in the local alcaldia (so like town records). Their computers are comparable to computers we used here in the US in the mid 1990s. They have very little access to good technology. Now, my husband never used an alias while here in the US, but it's not uncommon by any means.
 
As a Cherokee, I'm maybe a little more aware than the average person of Native American issues. One of these is the complexity of legal jurisdictions, as illustrated by this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/us/on-indian-reservations-higher-crime-and-fewer-prosecutions.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Indian reservations across the United States have grappled for years with chronic rates of crime higher than all but a handful of the nation’s most violent cities. But the Justice Department, which is responsible for prosecuting the most serious crimes on reservations, files charges in only about half of Indian Country murder investigations and turns down nearly two-thirds of sexual assault cases, according to new federal data.

<snip>

But tribes say they are rarely told why reservation cases are not pursued by the government.

“One of the basic problems is that not only are they declining to prosecute cases, but we are not getting the reason or notification for the declination,” said Jerry Gardner of the Tribal Law and Policy Institute in West Hollywood, Calif., which works with tribes to develop justice programs. “The federal system takes a long time to make a decision, and when it comes to something like a child sexual assault, the community gets the message that nothing is being done.”

I have definitely noticed a serious underreporting of missing NA persons in trying to match up NA UIDs. It could be that the missing person's family believes it's futile to approach LE agencies. It could be that they have approached LE but received little or no help. It could be that LE refused to file a report because the missing person "probably just got drunk and wandered off."

NA families don't love their missing ones any less than other families do; they just tend to get less support from the agencies that are supposed to be there to help.
 
Another thing to ponder about, according to RAINN the demographic most at risk for sexual assault is Native Americans (Followed by Mixed race). I attached the little tid-bit.


I also want to know why there is so much violence towards Native Americans. I can understand the UIDs that never get identified being hispanic just because there are migrant workers and even if they are in the country legally their family may not be.
 

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Another thing to ponder about, according to RAINN the demographic most at risk for sexual assault is Native Americans (Followed by Mixed race). I attached the little tid-bit.


I also want to know why there is so much violence towards Native Americans. I can understand the UIDs that never get identified being hispanic just because there are migrant workers and even if they are in the country legally their family may not be.

Lack of prosecution means the perpetrators are free to act any way they want, with little or no fear of any consequences.
 
A Comprehensive Report on MMIW: The Curiously Different Tales of Violence against Indigenous Women On Both Sides of Turtle Island

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/native-news/a-comprehensive-report-on-mmiw-the-curiously-different-tales-of-violence-against-indigenous-women-on-both-sides-of-turtle-island/

note: "Turtle Island" is North America

A Native woman is more likely to die by homicide than by illnesses including diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Intentional homicide has been the third leading cause of death for Native females aged 10–24. On some reservations, Native women and girls are murdered at more than 10 times the national average.

Among Native women victims of assault, an average of 63% describes the offender as non-Native. Among Native women victims of rape or sexual assault, an average of 67% percent describes the offender as non-Native.

More than 80% of sex crimes on reservations are committed by non-Native men immune from prosecution by Tribal courts.
 
I've been studying the frequency of missing and murdered indigenous women in north america and created this site:
http://www.justicefornativewomen.org/

If anyone is interested in more.

I think the reason for why so many UID and missing Native women occur is a many-feathered bird. You have the jurisdictional issues between state/federal/tribal agencies and so many times victims get lost in the shuffle as state/federal agencies try to exert their power and tribal agencies try to maintain their sovereignty. Some if it is just plain racism and some of these agency decisions are driven by a person's criminal history or being a "known drug user" or involved in the sex trade. I added a bit of my synopsis from my website below:

[FONT=&quot]There are many things that contribute to our vulnerability. Any population that is largely poor and underrepresented is at risk for violence. Poor communities (ghettos, reservations, trailer parks) tend to find unhealthy ways to deal with their circumstances such as crime, violence, gang involvement, drugs, and alcohol. Crime rates on the reservation are[/FONT] 2.5% higher[FONT=&quot] than the national average and result less often in charges. [/FONT]1/4 of all Native Americans are living in poverty.

[FONT=&quot]Historical traumas such as [/FONT]Indian Boarding Schools[FONT=&quot] have created a legacy of violence that ripples through our communities today. Many children were "raised" in these boarding schools that then then sent out into the world to raise their own children. If your only example of a parental figure beat, shamed, and sexually abused you, you would likely have trouble functioning as a person let alone as a parent.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Because of these and other damaging US policies, Native Americans are largely suspicious of and uncooperative with government systems. I've seen it in my own work. Many young people in foster care will runaway and be harbored in nearby reservations (usually resulting in exploitation by whoever is harboring them). "Snitching" to authorities carries with it a damaging community stigma and often an unofficial death sentence. If you live someplace where it is common practice for crime to not be reported let alone investigated, you are extremely vulnerable to violence.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Because of violence and poverty, Native children are exponentially more likely to be in the Child Welfare system and placed into foster care. In my home state of Minnesota, which has the highest rate of Native children in out of home placement, American Indian children are [/FONT]13 times more likely[FONT=&quot] to be placed into foster care than non-Indian children. Children in foster care are very vulnerable to scenarios like sex trafficking, abuse by caregivers, and runaway situations.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This is pretty staggering considering that in the 2010 Census only [/FONT]2.9 million[FONT=&quot] of the 318.9 million people in America identified themselves as Native American.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]And these are just a few of the many reasons Native women are vulnerable. [/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]So it's these statistics combined with my personal experience that have led me to profile the cases of missing, exploited, and murdered Native women. In my personal experience, violence against Native women is largely ignored by the media and America at large. It's accepted that what happened to our people is tragic, but is mostly understood as a historical and not contemporary issue. Most people do not investigate how governmental policies and historical trauma currently affect our communities in the form of violence.[/FONT]

Please let it be known I am not an outsider looking in. I'm enrolled Oneida and Ojibwe descendant, former tribal social worker, and current advocate for sex trafficking victims and victims of sexual assault, many of whom are Native. I'm currently acting as a consultant on a doc about these issues, so hopefully we will be able to explore the reasons behind a Native woman's vulnerability.
 
If you take a look at the number of Hispanic UID's in Texas and Arizona it's just staggering - most indeed are illegal (they come from Central America mainly), having crossed the border in the desert on foot. As such, it's nearly impossible to carry enough water in the desert to survive - many bodies are found carrying simply a small bottle of water. These people die terribly painful deaths from heat, sunstroke, dehydration, or exhaustion. When I lived in the Florida Keys, it was common to find bodies of deceased Cubans wash up on shore; some died from drowning, but many died from dehydration (drinking sea water will drive you to madness first, then your internal organs start shutting down - again, a brutal death). We'd go out fishing and we'd find rafts floating with no on one them (when the Coast Guard comes across those they usually sink them, or sometimes tow them to shore - so you know those Cubans who were on them are all dead), or makeshift boats, again with no souls aboard. The eeriest thing was when you'd come across a large boat just drifting, unoccupied, and inside it looked as if its occupants would return any minute (sadly, they were either taken by pirates, or else washed overboard). Just like my friend who lives in Texas says ranchers in the southern part of the state find bodies on their property pretty much on a weekly basis (and most will leave water hoses turned on, etc so these travelers can get a drink, but sadly they seldom use that resource). There are several organizations that have volunteers that head out into the desert and leave water jugs for those making the trek: http://www.borderangels.org/ and http://www.tucsonsamaritans.org/about-samaritans.html I used to be against having a border fence, but with so many deaths, we either need to have a continuous fence there or else create openings in the current partial fence that are closer to areas of civilization (instead of being in the remote desert). Because of the job I had in LE in the Florida Keys, I was often contacted by the Coast Guard or ICE to assist with processing the Cubans that were picked up at sea and brought to the dock (where a bus would take them to the detention center). I helped people who were at sea for days, in the relentless sun and heat, with hardly any water and no food - I'll never forget how thankful when I handed them a bottle of water and a power bar; it brought tears to my eyes to see our own brothers and sisters in such a state! I know illegal immigration is a hot topic, but we cannot forget that these folks are human - they have dreams, hobbies, loves, families, maybe children too - and merely want to be treated with dignity and respect like we all do as they seek a new life in America the beautiful!
 
I hope this fits in this thread. It was an eye-opener for me.

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2015/07/yellowbird/

Every weekend, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase heads into the Bakken oil fields to search for missing people.

&#8220;We are not a rescue,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We are a recovery.&#8221;
By day, Lissa Yellowbird-Chase is employed as a welder in Fargo, North Dakota and in a life not-so-long-ago, she worked as a tribal attorney with the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. With long brown hair and a Bluetooth headset that never leaves her ear, Yellowbird-Chase is now better acquainted with clandestine graves than tribal codes, and is at her happiest with a shovel in hand instead of an acetylene torch.

Her laugh is comforting and her smile is bright, but in her unguarded moments there is the sense of a woman consigned to carry the sorrows of strangers: in the Bakken oil fields, someone has to speak for the murdered and missing. So far, Yellowbird-Chase is the only one who has applied for the job.
 

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