CIBOLA COUNTY — In June 2021, Ella Mae Begay, a Diné elder from Sweetwater, Arizona, was reported missing. Her truck was last seen headed east, possibly toward Albuquerque. Almost four years later, she remains missing. Though her name is known across Navajo Nation and her case is listed by the FBI, a search of the Bureau’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) database returns no results for Cibola County.
That’s not because there is no crisis here.
There are 186 Indigenous people currently missing in New Mexico, according to the state Department of Justice. The average case remains unresolved for more than four years. Families in Cibola County are not immune to the silence, pain, and confusion that follow these disappearances. In the absence of swift justice, communities are left to do the work themselves — organizing searches, collecting leads, and praying that their loved ones will not be forgotten.
A national oversight body known as the Not Invisible Act Commission, launched five years ago under bipartisan legislation, issued a sweeping report last year calling for action across federal agencies. The report, titled Not One More, offered 212 pages of detailed recommendations on how to protect Indigenous people, especially women and foster youth, from going missing, being murdered, or falling victim to trafficking.
But in February, the report disappeared — not figuratively, but literally — from the U.S. Department of Justice website.
“I don’t know who’s going to carry the recommendations out,” said Kristin Welch, a Menominee Nation descendant and commissioner on the panel. “The report being removed doesn’t inspire hope under this administration that the work is going to continue and be meaningful.”
Welch, who leads the Wisconsin-based Waking Women Healing Institute, called the erasure a familiar betrayal. “It’s a really big slap in the face to our relatives. We’ve seen it so many times by the federal government: this constant erasure, with no respect for our relatives, their pain and their trauma.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment about why the report was taken offline. As of the Cibola Citizen research on April 1, the link to this report was still missing, while the landing webpage is still online.
Meanwhile, advocates say the work continues — just not from the top down.
In Cibola County, Tribal Families Step In Where Systems Fall Short
Cibola County is home to parts of the Acoma and Laguna Pueblos as well as significant Diné (Navajo) populations. For years, families in these communities have had to rely on informal networks — Facebook pages, word-of-mouth, community bulletin boards — to spread the word when someone goes missing. Jurisdictional confusion between tribal, state, and federal law enforcement often stalls investigations. In some cases, those first hours and days — the most critical window in any disappearance — slip by without any coordinated effort.
Cibola County representative Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta [HD69-D, Diné), whose district includes the To’Hajiilee Navajo community, knows the issue firsthand. Her mother was abducted and left for dead when Abeyta was a child. Her survival, Abeyta said in a recent interview, was nothing short of miraculous. It’s one reason she co-sponsored Senate Bill 41, establishing a Turquoise Alert System in New Mexico.
Similar to the Amber Alert for missing children, the Turquoise Alert is specifically designed to help locate Native Americans who go missing under unexplained or suspicious circumstances. It passed unanimously through both chambers and awaits the governor’s signature.
The system is urgently needed in Cibola County, where gaps in coordination continue to cost valuable time. “When someone goes missing, we’re combining our own resources outside of law enforcement,” Abeyta said. “It’s not right.”
The Turquoise Alert, when implemented, will be managed by the Department of Public Safety and align with the recommendations of a now-defunct MMIP Task Force established by the state in 2022. It will require law enforcement to track every alert’s timeline and effectiveness, with the hope of creating a data-driven feedback loop that prioritizes transparency.
Cibola County resident Sen. Angel Charley [SD30D, Laguna/Zuni/Diné], cosponsor of the bill and former executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, stressed the importance of speed and visibility in these cases. She referenced the 2016 abduction and murder of 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike on the Navajo Nation, where jurisdictional delays prevented an Amber Alert from being issued until the following day.
“You never know if coordination would have happened in a way that was quick and efficient,” Charley said.
A Vanishing Report and the Urgency to Act Locally
Though the Not Invisible Act was signed in 2020 under former President Donald Trump — and praised by the Biden administration in 2024 — the report’s disappearance from the DOJ website raises concerns about the federal government’s commitment to following through.
Among the most urgent findings: Indigenous children in the foster care system are at dramatically higher risk of going missing. Of nearly 3,000 reported cases reviewed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 99 percent were resolved — but not without serious risk, including exposure to drugs, trafficking, and violence. The commission called for immediate federal action to mandate reporting protocols and trauma-informed support.
Now, tribal leaders and MMIP advocates worry that without federal accountability, local efforts will remain underfunded and unsupported.
“The community continues to lead these efforts, and the work doesn’t stop because there’s a different president in office,” said Ruth Buffalo, CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and a commission member. “That just means we continue to push even harder to hold the elected officials accountable.”
Where to Go for Help
Families in Cibola County can report missing Indigenous persons through the New Mexico MMIP Portal at mmip.nmdoj.gov, a state initiative launched to centralize reports and advocate for justice. The FBI also maintains a national database of Indigenous missing persons, although no active cases are currently listed for Cibola County. That absence is as revealing as any statistic.