“Supreme Court Has Case That Worries Indian Legal Specialists: Children in Tribes”

SIn an odd coincidence, but two weeks before Thanksgiving, the United States Supreme Court considered a law that is considered fundamental in the Native American world: the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA). It should be remembered that Thanksgiving, every fourth Thursday in November, commemorates the sharing of a mythical meal between the English settlers who arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the Wampanoag tribe in 1621. For most Americans, it is a time of family celebration and thanksgiving. It is a day of mourning for Indian tribes. of their ancestors, their lands and their culture.

On November 9, the Supreme Court seized a file that Indian legal experts have seen with concern for years: Children in Tribes. According to ICWA, children must first be placed with their immediate family, if not with another family within the same tribe, then from another tribe, before they are adopted by non-Indians.

Passed by Congress in the wake of the Red Power movement of the 1970s, the law ended two decades of forced adoptions of thousands of Native American children. What social services have described as “social pathologies” affecting the Indian world. By giving priority to tribes in deciding the fate of their children, it became a cornerstone of the principle of Indian sovereignty.

The first complaint against the ICWA law was filed in 2018 by a Texas couple, Chad and Jennifer Brackin, two evangelical Christians who successfully adopted a half-Cherokee, half-Navajo baby, who wanted to adopt his sister as well. The Navajo Nation, having granted their first request, refused to accept the second. The two children, now 7 and 4 years old, are still at home awaiting the court’s final decision.

“reverse racism”

A few years later, the state of Texas joined the lawsuit, followed by two other families. The plaintiffs believe that the law violates the Constitution. On the one hand, because it is based on a racial and therefore discriminatory criterion; On the other hand, because it infringes on the prerogatives of states responsible for child support services. Tribal attorneys counter that it’s not about race, it’s about citizenship. Of the 574 tribes recognized by the federal government, only children are concerned, not all Indian children.