(28) according to the Child Removal Survey 
conducted by the National Native American Board-
ing School Healing Coalition, the First Nations Re-
patriation Institute, and the University of Min-
nesota, 75 percent of Indian boarding school sur-
vivors who responded to the survey had attempted 
suicide, and nearly half of respondents to the survey 
reported being diagnosed with a mental health con-
dition; 
(29) the continuing lasting implications of the 
Indian Boarding School Policies and the physical, 
sexual, psychological, industrial, and spiritual abuse 
and neglect of American Indian and Alaska Native 
children and families influenced the present-day op-
eration of Bureau of Indian Education-operated 
schools; 
(30) Bureau of Indian Education-operated 
schools have often failed to meet the many needs of 
nearly 50,000 American Indian and Alaska Native 
students across 23 States; 
(31) in Alaska, where there are no Bureau of 
Indian Education-funded elementary and secondary 
schools, the State public education system often fails 
to meet the needs of Alaska Native students, fami-
lies, and communities; 
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(32) the assimilation policies imposed on Amer-
ican Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians 
during the Indian boarding school era have been 
replicated through other Federal actions and pro-
grams, including the Indian Adoption Project in ef-
fect from 1958 to 1967, which placed American In-
dian and Alaska Native children in non-Indian 
households and institutions for foster care or adop-
tion; 
(33) the Association on American Indian Af-
fairs reported that the continuation of assimilation 
policies through Federal American Indian and Alas-
ka Native adoption and foster care programs be-
tween 1941 to 1967 separated as many as one-third 
of American Indian and Alaska Native children from 
their families in Tribal communities; 
(34) in some States, greater than 50 percent of 
foster care children in State adoption systems are 
American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawai-
ian children, including in Alaska, where over 60 per-
cent of children in foster care are Alaska Native; 
(35) the general lack of public awareness, ac-
countability, education, information, and acknowl-
edgment of the ongoing and direct impacts of the 
Indian Boarding School Policies and related inter-
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generational trauma persists, signaling the overdue 
need for an investigative Federal commission to fur-
ther document and expose assimilation and termi-
nation efforts to eradicate the cultures and lan-
guages of Indigenous peoples implemented under In-
dian Boarding School Policies; and 
(36) in the secretarial memorandum entitled 
‘‘Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative’’ and 
dated June 22, 2021, Secretary of the Interior 
Debra 
Haaland 
stated 
the 
following: 
‘‘The 
assimilationist policies of the past are contrary to 
the doctrine of trust responsibility, under which the 
Federal Government must promote Tribal self-gov-
ernance and cultural integrity. Nevertheless, the leg-
acy of Indian boarding schools remains, manifesting 
itself in Indigenous communities through intergen-
erational trauma, cycles of violence and abuse, dis-
appearance, premature deaths, and other undocu-
mented bodily and mental impacts.’’. 
SEC. 3. PURPOSES. 
The purposes of this Act are to establish a Truth and 
Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies 
in the United States— 
(1) to formally investigate and document— 
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(A) the attempted termination of cultures 
and languages of Indigenous peoples, assimila-
tion practices, and human rights violations that 
occurred against American Indians, Alaska Na-
tives, and Native Hawaiians through Indian 
Boarding School Policies in furtherance of the 
motto to ‘‘kill the Indian in him and save the 
man’’; and 
(B) the impacts and ongoing effects of his-
torical and intergenerational trauma in Native 
communities, including the effects of the at-
tempted cultural, religious, and linguistic termi-
nation of American Indians, Alaska Natives, 
and Native Hawaiians, resulting from Indian 
Boarding School Policies; 
(2) to hold culturally respectful and meaningful 
public hearings for American Indian, Alaska Native, 
and Native Hawaiian survivors, victims, families, 
communities, organizations, and Tribal leaders to 
testify, discuss, and add to the documentation of, 
the impacts of the physical, psychological, and spir-
itual violence of Indian boarding schools; 
(3) to collaborate and exchange information 
with the Department of the Interior with respect to 
the review of the Indian Boarding School Policies 
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announced by Secretary of the Interior Debra 
Haaland in the secretarial memorandum entitled 
‘‘Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative’’ and 
dated June 22, 2021; and 
(4) to further develop recommendations for the 
Federal Government to acknowledge and heal the 
historical and intergenerational trauma caused by 
the Indian Boarding School Policies and other cul-
tural and linguistic termination practices carried out 
by the Federal Government and State and local gov-
ernments, including recommendations— 
(A) for resources and assistance that the 
Federal Government should provide to aid in 
the healing of the trauma caused by the Indian 
Boarding School Policies; 
(B) to establish a nationwide hotline for 
survivors, family members, or other community 
members affected by the Indian Boarding 
School Policies; and 
(C) to prevent the continued removal of 
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native 
Hawaiian children from their families and Na-
tive communities under modern-day assimila-
tion practices carried out by State social service 
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