AC Swedbergh/AZPM The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Thursday it set up the new Missing and Murdered Unit for American Indians and Alaska Natives to support interagency investigations. Cases of missing or murdered Indigenous peoples can cover multiple jurisdictions, such as federal, state, tribal. It has become a longstanding hurdle for solving these crimes. “Violence against Indigenous peoples is a crisis that has been underfunded for decades,”Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. "Far too often, murders and missing persons cases in Indian country go unsolved and unaddressed, leaving families and communities devastated." According to a press release from the department, the National Crime Information Center reports there are about 1,500 American Indian or Alaska Native missing people in the United States, and another 2,700 murder or nonnegligent homicide offenses in the Uniformed Crime Reporting Program.