DEVILS LAKE, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – Tribal police recruits in North Dakota will soon have an option for basic training through the Bureau of Indian Affairs that’s closer to home.
Camp Grafton, a North Dakota National Guard base near Devils Lake, is currently the site of advanced law enforcement training for the BIA. It’s now set to host basic law enforcement training for BIA recruits, as well as for recruits from local tribal police departments, law enforcement communications and correctional agencies.
The news was tucked into a wider-reaching executive order from U.S. Interior Secretary and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to create an Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force. A news release announced the creation of the task force Tuesday, which was the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.
The task force “builds on the first Trump administration’s work to bring national attention and resources to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People crisis,” the release says, and “expands that work with a broader focus on violent crime prevention, investigations and public safety across Indian Country.”
Among other things, the task force will focus on opioid trafficking, create a “Predatory Crimes Unit” to focus on child victims of exploitation and “refocus” efforts to solve missing persons and homicide cases.
Burgum advocated to bring BIA basic training to Camp Grafton while serving as North Dakota governor.
During a U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs field hearing in 2019 in Bismarck, he said a Camp Grafton BIA academy would help recruit tribal officers across the region.
Tribal recruits nationwide, for local departments or the BIA, have traditionally attended basic training at a federal facility in Artesia, New Mexico.
He said tribal communities face the dual difficulties of high crime rates and a dearth of law enforcement, and that the distance between the training facility and their homes makes recruiting difficult.
“We believe that we can create a premier BIA tribal police officer training facility in North Dakota at Camp Grafton, in conjunction with the Lake Region Law Enforcement Academy in Devils Lake,” Burgum told the committee. “This is very close to Spirit Lake Nation, and not only could this help solve the problem in North Dakota, but for South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin.”
The U.S. Indian Police Academy Advanced Training Center at Camp Grafton opened the following year. The facility offers higher-level training for officers who’ve already completed the 14-week basic law enforcement certification course in New Mexico.
The timeline on the “implementation of basic training” at Camp Grafton is unclear. Burgum’s Tuesday executive order directs the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs to “develop basic training curriculum” for police, corrections and communications courses at the site “beginning in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026.”
The second quarter of federal fiscal year 2026 began in January.
The Interior Department did not respond to an email from South Dakota Searchlight with questions about the start of the Camp Grafton basic training program, the number of recruits it could train, and other questions.
Calls to a spokesperson for Camp Grafton were not immediately returned.
Like Burgum, South Dakota’s congressional delegation and its state-level leaders have also pushed for the establishment of a BIA training academy for the Great Plains for several years, but had hoped to see it in their state.
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds and U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson have each argued for Pierre as an appropriate location, as the city already has a state-run law enforcement training academy.
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