Congress funds missing Native Americans coordination—and audits federal law enforcement
H.R. 1010 — BADGES for Native Communities Act · Filed by Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) · 9 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 5, 2025 · Hearing held
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What it does
This bill creates two main programs to address missing and murdered Native Americans. First, it establishes a 5-year demonstration program allowing the Department of Interior to conduct background investigations and security clearances for Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement applicants, potentially streamlining hiring. Second, it authorizes $5 million in federal grants (2026–2030) to tribes, states, and tribal organizations to establish coordination centers, regional commissions, and alert systems to track missing persons, sexual violence, and death cases involving Native Americans, while requiring a GAO study on federal law enforcement evidence-handling practices in Indian country.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is establishing federal grant programs and coordination infrastructure to address missing and murdered Native Americans, paired with a federal audit of law enforcement evidence-handling. This is a straightforward public-safety and accountability measure, not a regulatory carve-out or subsidy to private interests.
What the text implies
- The background-investigation demonstration program may create a two-tier federal hiring system if BIA clearances are deemed sufficient but state/local standards diverge, potentially complicating cross-jurisdictional law enforcement cooperation.
- Grant eligibility requires states to either report missing persons to national databases or develop a plan to do so; states currently non-compliant may face implicit pressure to participate in the grant program to meet this requirement.
- The GAO study on evidence-handling and US Attorney declination rates may expose systemic underinvestigation of crimes in Indian country, creating political pressure for additional appropriations or DOJ policy changes beyond this bill's scope.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill directly addresses a documented public-safety crisis—missing and murdered Native Americans—by funding coordination infrastructure, improving data-sharing, and requiring federal accountability audits. The background-investigation demonstration program may improve BIA law enforcement capacity without imposing costs on citizens. No provisions restrict citizen rights or create liability shields.
Who stands to gain
- Tribal law enforcement agencies
- State and local law enforcement agencies (in consortia with tribes)
- Tribal organizations
- Federal contractors providing training and mental health services
Named in the bill
Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Justice Services, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Interior, US Attorneys, Comptroller General, Indian Tribes, Tribal organizations, National Crime Information Center, National Missing and Unidentified Persons System
Where it stands
9 cosponsors: 8 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Feb 5, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 5, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Natural…”
- May 21, 2026 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Hearings Held”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $3,050,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 49 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Teresa Leger Fernandez, the sponsor, reported $239,350 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Friends Committee on National Legislation — $3,000,000 on 3 filings
- Peace Officers Research Association of California — $50,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (8,500 characters) on Aug 12, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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