Advocates: Some missing Indigenous people are victims of phony clinics

[Puzzleworth]

This article was on MSN today. There's going to be a crackdown on fake rehabs that will hopefully close some cases. Basically: A loophole in Arizona's Medicaid rehab oversight laws meant scammy "pop-up sober living centers" and rehabs have cropped up across the state. The scammers targeted Native tribal members in order to bill the state American Indian Health Program for alcohol abuse counseling. "Patients" were often picked up off the street, at gas stations, and outside health clinics. Numerous survivors have reported being held against their will; several even had to jump out of windows and scale walls. Advocates for missing Native people have known of the issue for a while.

“These unsheltered Native people have told us they have escaped from these homes,” said [missing persons advocate Reva] Stewart. “Some are literally locked inside these homes from the outside. Some of these Native people had to escape over the walls. Some homes we looked at have cameras all over the place.”

In September [2022], the FBI released the second update of its list of Native Americans verified as missing in New Mexico and the Navajo Nation. There was a total of 183 missing Indigenous persons on the latest list: 21 individuals have been added and 24 removed since last month’s list of 186 names was released.

When the list was first released in July, there were 177 names on it. The updated list, current as of Sept. 13 [2022], has 115 males and 68 females. Men are reported to be the people who make up most of those who are being targeted and taken to these homes in Phoenix. It's also reported that victims are also taken from New Mexico to Phoenix, it's not just an Arizona issue.

Fingers crossed some missing people are located as a result of this.

 

[LadyL]

what is happening in this world? in first-world countries?

 

[Cryptic]

what is happening in this world? in first-world countries?

I am thinking a perfect storm of:

- Indifference

- limited resources (even in the first world US, vast pockets of poverty exist both on reservations and off reservations).

- Complex sovereignty status of tribal nations in the US. As my Puerto Rican friend tells me, sovereignty is not always managed well and being sovereign means that solving mis management problems can be very difficult.