Tester requests watchdog review Bureau of Indian Affairs public safety record in Montana

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) asked a congressional watchdog this week to review the work of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Montana, criticizing what he described as the bureau’s “unacceptable” public safety efforts.

The BIA is the Department of Interior’s oldest bureau, according to its website, which describes its mission as “to enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives.”

Tester, who is fighting to win reelection in one of this season’s toughest races, wrote in a letter Monday to Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general and head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), that he had “direct conversations” with leaders from nearly every tribe in his state about the public safety challenges they were facing.

An “extreme lack” of trained law enforcement and insufficient detention facilities and detention officers top the list of the bureau’s shortcomings, Tester alleged. 

He also said tribes had expressed concerns about their members being sent to out-of-state detention facilities and the bureau’s “lack of cooperation with Tribal courts.”

“The status quo of BIA’s public safety efforts in Montana is unacceptable and simply cannot continue. It is time for an outside agency to review BIA’s current practices, examine its use of funds and make recommendations on how the agency can improve its ability to deliver public safety resources,” Tester wrote.

“Between the ongoing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis, a fentanyl and substance abuse epidemic, rising cartel activity, lack of adequate detention facilities and overall increase in crime, the initiative to improve the BIA should be the top priority of the GAO.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs did not return requests for comment.

Sarah Kaczmarek, GAO’s acting managing director of public affairs, confirmed the agency received Tester’s request, but she noted the process to determine whether and when the agency may take up the work could take weeks.

“At this point, no decisions have been made,” Kaczmarek told The Hill.

The Montana Democrat is running one of the closest races of the 2024 election cycle against former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, who won the GOP nomination in June. The race is one of three Senate contests rated a “toss up,” according to the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report.

Native Americans make up 6.4 percent of Montana’s population, according to the Census Bureau. In such a tight race, these voters could be key to clinching a critical reelection victory and maintaining Democratic control of the Senate, as Politico wrote in May.