JUDGE: Killing The Indian Child Welfare Law Would Hurt People Like Me

Stories like mine do not get told. I was only in the fifth grade when I was removed from my classroom and taken from my family by a state social worker. A 10-year-old who is ripped apart from his family — never having the chance to say goodbye to his mother or grandmother — develops a scar that never goes away. But it is a scar that many bear because, like me, they are members of Native American tribes.

For decades, our own government did not agree with how Indian families like my own raised their children, and removed us from our loved ones to be raised in a culture that was entirely alien. I cycled through a total of six non-Native homes over the course of five years. I was forced to accept six different religions and six different cultures, impacting everything from my spiritual values to the food I ate. I was treated as unworthy of love, as an outsider, as though my background meant I was undeserving of the family that every child deserves. I waited countless nights alone in foster homes thinking my mother would come rescue me. She never did. In fact, it was recorded in my file that I was banned by the court from any contact with family members.

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HOW A RIGHT-WING ATTACK ON PROTECTIONS FOR NATIVE AMERICAN CHILDREN COULD UPEND INDIAN LAW

A LAW KEY to preventing state welfare agencies from separating Indigenous children from their families is at risk of being overturned thanks to the yearslong effort of a network of libertarian and right-wing organizations.

In the 1970s, between a quarter and a third of Indigenous children across the United States had been removed from their homes. Social services often cited neglect or deprivation — euphemisms for poverty — as grounds for placing children in the custody of non-Native families and institutions, offering birth parents little opportunity for redress. Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 in order to reform a system designed to destroy Indigenous people.

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Battle Pits Native American Tribes Against White Couple Over Adoption of Native Child in Case With Potential Affirmative Action Implications

In a case that may have implications for race-based affirmative action and other similar remedies offered to address centuries of racial discrimination in this nation, Native American tribes have banded together against a white couple over who should have custody of a Native American child.

Jennifer and Chad Brackeen of Texas are challenging federal law that requires Native American children to be adopted by a Native American family if a suitable one is available, the New York Times reports.

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Supreme Court Rules Against Goldwater Institute In Native American Child Welfare Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed a bid to void a federal law that challengers claim is racist because it places the desires and rights of Native American tribes over the constitutionally protected best interests of children.

That, however, does not mean the justices believe the Indian Child Welfare Act is legal. Instead, they refused to disturb a lower court ruling which said that this particular case was moot because the Arizona adoptions at issue had gone through.

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• U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Indian Child Welfare case

Navajo Nation Wins Appeal in Indian Child Welfare Act Case

The Arizona Court of Appeals ordered a new hearing Thursday over the guardianship of a 6-year-old child who is subject to the Indian Child Welfare Act.

The Navajo Nation appealed the case, The Navajo Nation v. Department of Child Safety et al., in October 2018 after the juvenile court failed to hear the testimony of a qualified expert witness as required by the ICWA in the child's guardianship case.

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American Indian adoptees deal with painful past and family separations

Jane Harstad gave birth in 1986 to her first child, a son. Soon after, a pediatrician asked for her family’s medical history. She didn’t have a clue. She didn’t know who her biological mother or father was, let alone what medical conditions they had.

Harstad, who is Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, was adopted shortly after birth through Catholic Charities adoption services in 1965. The agency placed her in a white, middle-class family living in St. Paul, Minn.

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Court Fights Intensify Over Who Gets To Adopt Native American Children

A case before a federal appeals court last week could upend an historic adoption law meant to combat centuries of brutal discrimination against American Indians and keep their children with families and tribal communities.

For the first time, a few states have sued to overturn the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which Congress enacted in 1978 as an antidote to entrenched policies of uprooting Native children and assimilating them into mainstream white culture.

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Tribes offer overwhelming support for Indian Child Welfare Act

On Jan. 16, 325 tribal nations, 57 Native organizations, 21 states, 31 child welfare organizations, Indian and constitutional law scholars, and seven members of Congress joined the United States and four intervenor tribes in filing briefs to urge the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), the long-standing federal law protecting the well-being of Native children by upholding family integrity and stability.

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When Native American Children Are Adopted By White Families, It Isn't Always A Happy Ending

In the 1950s and '60s, thousands of Native American children were adopted to white families. Because the adoptions were mostly closed, many of those children had unanswered questions about their birth parents and their identities.

Susan Harness of Fort Collins was one of those children. When Harness was 18 months old, social workers removed her from the Flathead Reservation in Montana and placed her with a white family. She wrote about the experience in her new book, "Bitterroot."

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The United States will join four tribes defending the Indian Child Welfare Act against a district court ruling in Texas.

“We applaud the Department of Justice for standing up for Native children and families by continuing to vigorously defend ICWA,” said Sarah Kastelic, executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. “The Department’s action sends a strong and clear message that tribal nations, as governments, have a role in protecting Native children from abuse and neglect; helping families receive the support services they need; and ensuring children stay connected to their families, culture, and communities.”

More >> The United States will join four tribes defending the Indian Child Welfare Act against a district court ruling in Texas.

Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Resolution Recognizing 40th Anniversary Of Indian Child Welfare Act

 U.S. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.), vice chairman and chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, respectively, along with U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and U.S. Representatives Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and Tom Cole (R-Okla.), led 46 members of Congress Tuesday in introducing a bipartisan resolution commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and recognizing its importance to promoting the stability and security of Tribal communities and families.

ICWA sets best-practice standards for child welfare and adoption proceedings involving children who are members of a federally-recognized Tribe or are eligible for membership in a federally-recognized Tribe.

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Native Americans March For Their Children Placed With Foster Families

Members of the Native American community journeyed on foot through Sioux City on Wednesday to memorialize Native children who have been removed from their homes and placed in foster care.

To Michael Wanbdigdeski O’Connor, the march is medicine, prayer and healing. He says when he marches, he thinks about the children in the child welfare system who have suffered and others that are suffering.

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Why conservatives are attacking a law meant to protect Native American families

My grandmother Inez was a striking beauty, and quiet. Seen but not heard. She was the youngest of 11 siblings in a family that lived in Albuquerque. Through circumstances that remain hazy today, she was adopted by a white couple in the 1930s. For the rest of her life, Inez suffered from depression and anxiety, which she medicated with alcohol. My father was raised enveloped by her pain. At age 16, just before Thanksgiving, he found her body on the living room couch; she died of liver cirrhosis.

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Cherokee leaders speak out against Texas adoption ruling

A recent court ruling in Texas has Native American tribes across the country — including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians — concerned about threats to their status as sovereign nations.

The ruling, handed down by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Conner, concluded that the 1978 law governing child welfare actions in Indian Country is race-based and therefore unconstitutional. It had previously been seen as a law based on tribes’ political — not racial — status.

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'Dawnland' documents untold story of Native American child removal in the U.S.

“Dawnland,” a documentary which will begin streaming Nov. 6, follows the first government-endorsed truth and reconciliation commission in the U.S. as Maine investigates the devastating impacts of Native American child removal.

“Dawnland” is premiering on the PBS series Independent Lens, as part of November Native American Heritage Month programming.

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'Dawnland' Documents Maine's Efforts To Reconcile Indian Child Removal

In 2012, the state of Maine began an effort to address a disturbing part of its history and present: the systematic removal of Indigenous children from their families and tribal communities through boarding schools and the foster care system. The documentary "Dawnland" follows the work of the Maine Wabanaki-State Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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• Wabanaki Seek Healing and Justice in 'Dawnland'

Native Americans Say Law That Protects Children at Risk

An American law that blocks placement of Native American children with non-native American families was ruled illegal earlier this month.

A federal judge in Texas announced the decision, surprising many native groups.

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Challenges to Indian Child Welfare Act Concern Native Americans

On Mother’s Day 2015, Iva Johnson, a member of the Navajo Nation living off reservation in Flagstaff, Arizona, suffered a heart attack and fell into a coma. When she opened her eyes days later, she saw two unfamiliar women sitting at the end of her bed.

“I was trying to focus, and I was thinking to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, did I die?’” she said.

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Indigenous Writers & Activists on Indian Child Welfare Act & Ongoing Struggle for Native Sovereignty

Extended discussion with three leading indigenous writers and activists. Tara Houska is in Fargo, North Dakota. She is national campaign director for Honor the Earth and an Ojibwe lawyer. In Anchorage, Alaska, we speak with Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today. He’s a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. In Seattle, Washington, we speak with Gyasi Ross, a member of the Blackfeet Nation and host of the podcast Breakdances with Wolves.

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Judge strikes down Native American adoption law; Tribes plan to fight back

A landmark legislation involving Native American adoption illegal has been deemed illegal.

In the Oct. 4 ruling, a Texas federal judge said the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was unconstitutional.

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• States Say Indian Child Welfare Act Must Be Blocked
• On Indian Child Welfare Act, Time for Critics and Supporters to Talk in Earnest
• 9th Circ. Won't Rethink Indian Child Welfare Act Ruling
• Alaska tribes, state officials denounce Indian Child Welfare Act ruling