One well-placed phone call can make all the difference. A single call set in motion a series of events across jurisdictions and international lines that helped one Indigenous woman reunite with her community in Canada. 

The effort brought our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) office together with law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border, U.S. Border Patrol, the Otter Tail County Coordinated Response Team and the Red Response Team to help one person in need.  

“The care and concern all the participating organizations had for this nameless woman, our nameless woman was apparent,” said Ana Negrete, a community planner in our MMIR office. “She wasn’t dismissed, no one played 'not it’, everyone stepped up with genuine compassion. Our office exists because Indigenous people have been overlooked by systems, and they saw her this time."

The first call came from Lt. Connor West in the Fergus Falls Police Department. Law enforcement officers had been called to perform a welfare check on a woman found wandering near the train tracks. The woman, whose name is being withheld to protect her privacy, had a gash on her head and was unable to tell them even the most basic information about herself. There were no missing person’s reports that matched her description. Her fingerprints returned no information. And no one appeared to be looking for her.

From their interviews, police suspected she was Indigenous and could be from Canada. She was obviously extremely vulnerable, but there was not much they could do. A social worker embedded alongside the Fergus Falls Police Department secured temporary placement for the mystery woman while police continued to search for clues about her identity and family. That’s when West reached out to MMIR and found intelligence specialist Taylor Wencel.  Wencel helped connect West with other law enforcement agencies who might have access to additional information.

Meanwhile, Negrete traveled to meet with the woman in Fargo, N.D., where she was being held in adult protective custody. She was guarded and cautious, but Negrete immediately recognized an opening to build trust with the woman, when she offered Negrete a snack.

“We’re trained not to accept anything from our clients,” said Negrete. “But this is a cultural norm. It’s something that you would do in any Indigenous household, even if it was something as simple as water.”

That’s when clues started to come out about her identity. Our MMIR office sent the woman’s photograph to a contact at an Indigenous women’s shelter they had toured in Canada earlier in the year. It was their first breakthrough: The shelter staff knew the woman; in fact, she had stayed with them before.

“We recognized her as a relative and we treated her as such,” said Victor Mondaca from the Red Response Team. “To us, she is more than her symptoms, more than her mental health, more than homeless, more than anything else that hurt her, she is a relative and getting her back to her homeland was very important.”

The agencies working together on the case learned a little more about her background from the shelter. She appeared to have hopped a train bound for the U.S. while she was fleeing a suspected trafficking situation. She presented with mental health, trauma and substance abuse risk factors. Everyone who touched the case agreed that they would do what they could to help get her home where she knows people and where she can get help from people she is familiar with. 

Together, our office, U.S. Border Patrol, the Otter Tail County Coordinated Response Team, the Red Response Team and Fergus Falls Police Department, ensured that the woman did not get lost in the system on either side of the border and will receive ongoing support.