CNN
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President Joe Biden on Friday Officially apologized to Native Americans Government-funded boarding schools, which he describes as “one of the most horrific chapters in American history,” abused native children and forced them to assimilate over a period of 150 years.

“Frankly, there is no excuse for this apology taking 150 years,” Biden said after calling for a moment of silence in Laveen, Arizona, to “remember those who were lost and the generations living with this trauma.”

Between 1819 and 1969, at least 18,000 children were taken from their families and forced to attend more than 400 boarding schools in 37 states or territories. Three years ago, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, commissioned the federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to study the effects of schools on Native Americans.

The final report, released this summer, found that at least 973 Native American children died while attending these federal boarding schools.

“As President,” Biden said Friday, “I believe it is important that we know that for generations, native children have been stolen, taken to places they did not know, with people they had never met, who spoke their own language I had never heard of.”

“Indigenous communities have been silenced; the laughter and play of their children have vanished,” he added. “… Children are exposed to emotional, physical and sexual abuse, are forced to do hard labor, some are given up for adoption without their birth parents’ permission, some are left dead and in unmarked graves.”

The president added that the children who returned home were “injured physically and mentally.”

Biden’s remarks were held at Gila Crossing Community School outside Phoenix. This is his first visit to Indian Country as president and the first time a sitting president has visited tribal lands in 10 years. Then-President Barack Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in 2014.

Biden acknowledged that “no apology can make up for or make up for what was lost during the darkness of federal residential school policy.”

But the president added: “We are finally moving towards the light.”

The president’s speech was briefly interrupted by two pro-Palestinian protesters. He paused his speech to say that the killing of people in Gaza “must stop.”

CNN’s Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.