WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp today helped represent North Dakota tribes at the White House Tribal Nations Conference, an annual gathering of representatives from the nation’s 566 federally recognized tribes, including all five of North Dakota’s tribal nations.

A decades-long advocate for Indian Country, Heitkamp helped reinforce the need to stand up for Native American families and children during the conference. Heitkamp highlighted that the President and First Lady’s recent visit to Standing Rock in June – which she joined – helped encourage the White House to launch its Generation Indigenous (Gen I) initiative today. The new federal effort will focus on providing greater opportunities to Native youth by helping to lift the barriers they face in their quest to succeed.

Heitkamp spoke with the President at Standing Rock earlier this year, where she emphasized the dire need for increased resources and support for Native children living on the reservation and throughout Indian Country. Since her time as North Dakota Attorney General, Heitkamp has been steadfast in working to make sure the U.S government upholds its treaty and trust responsibilities with Native Americans, and today’s conference and federal announcement are needed progress. Heitkamp also attended last year’s White House Tribal Nations Conference.

“We need to work together to empower all of our children, including Native children, by providing the care, resources, and workable solutions they need to thrive,” said Heitkamp. “Today’s announcement which comes just six months after the President and First Lady visited with students at Standing Rock, is so needed as it shows a federal commitment to help Native children grow and succeed, and that’s good for all of us. Since my time as North Dakota’s Attorney General, I’ve been pushing for programs that give our kids living in Indian Country a fighting chance, and I didn’t quit when I got to the Senate – the first bill I introduced would create a national Commission on Native Children to find ways to solve challenges that follow them in the long-term. It’s an honor to help represent North Dakota’s tribes at today’s White House conference, and I’ll continue to pave a brighter path for Native kids, not just because I’ve heard the stories and seen the faces – but because we have a civic and moral responsibility to take care of our kids. And we can, and must, do it together.”

Gen I includes a comprehensive strategy for providing greater opportunities to help Native youth thrive, which complements the goals of Heitkamp’s Commission on Native Children bill. In addition, U.S. Department of the Interior took steps to improve tribally controlled schools by restructuring the Bureau of Indian Education to serve as a support network, as opposed to a direct education provider for tribal schools.

For decades, Heitkamp has been a strong proponent of resources and policies that better serve North Dakota’s tribes. The first bill she introduced in the Senate would create a Commission on Native Children to conduct an intensive study into issues facing children living in Indian Country, and make recommendations on how to make sure these children are better taken care of and given the opportunities to thrive. The bill, which has bipartisan 34 cosponsors passed unanimously in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs – the final step before it goes to the Senate floor for a vote. 

After working closely for the past year with the U.S. Department of Justice Attorney General’s Task Force on American Indian/Alaskan Native Children Exposed to Violence, including testifying at the Task Force’s first hearing in Bismarck last December, the Task Force last week issued sweeping recommendations – many of which Heitkamp has pushed for – to improve the lives of children living in Indian Country. Following a Committee on Indian Affairs hearing last month which focused on the need for proactive measures to improve and protect the mental health of Native children, Heitkamp led a group of top experts, key policymakers, and select federal agency representatives in developing strategies to prevent and treat the dire impact of traumatic stress on children living in Indian Country.

The first bill Heitkamp co-sponsored in the Senate was the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and she worked to include a key provision in the bill to address the continuing crisis of violence against women in tribal communities. The provision strengthens the existing programs and provides tribal governments the force they need to prosecute non-Indian perpetrators who commit these crimes on tribal land.

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