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When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act yesterday, there was a collective sigh of relief among Alaska Native leaders.
Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA reports, they had feared the worst.
The Alaska Federation of Natives has been involved in the fight to protect ICWA for years.
“This is something we care deeply about.”
The president of AFN, Julie Kitka, says a lot was at stake, far beyond the right of tribes to oversee adoptions.
“A lot of threads of Federal Indian law, the authority for the Congress to deal with Alaska Natives, Native Americans derives from that.”
Kitka says had efforts to overturn ICWA succeeded, tribal sovereignty could have seen widespread erosion.
Brian Ridley is head of the Tanana Chiefs Conference in Interior Alaska.
“Today’s decision represents a huge win for tribes throughout the nation and reaffirms tribal sovereignty.”
Ridley says ICWA has been a success story for tribes, that’s helped to keep children, families, and tribes together, along with their culture and traditions.
“All the years of work that we’ve done to get to this point in trying to protect our Native kids and keep them with our Native families.”
But during a U.S. Supreme Court hearing last year, Matthew McGill, the attorney representing a white family, fighting to adopt a Native child, argued that ICWA had discriminated against them – and put the interests of the tribe, over the needs of the child.
Matthew McGill/Attorney for the Brackeens: “That means each year hundreds, if not thousands of Indian Children are placed in non-Indian foster homes. And sometimes there, they bond with those families.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion.
She cited more than a century of precedent and the plaintiff’s lack of standing on the issues.
Richard Peterson, President of Tlingit and Haida, the largest tribal group in Alaska, says the lawsuit had one benefit, it brought more than 500 tribes together to fight for ICWA.
“In a time where we don’t all agree on different things, I mean it really unified us.”
And the tribes prevailed.
“It’s always scary when you go to court, but we keep winning, because we’re on the right side.”
Peterson says the unity achieved to fight for ICWA will still be needed.
He believes the threats to tribal sovereignty are far from over.
Courtesy ACLU
Native state lawmakers in South Dakota are praising the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act.
They say now is the time to push for better outcomes for Native kids in the state.
South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Lee Strubinger has more.
Under ICWA, Native children removed from their homes are placed with relatives, tribal members, or other Native families.
The Supreme Court is upholding the law, which says state must work to keep children close to their culture.
“Yeah, I’m super happy.”
State Rep. Tamara St. John (Dakota/R-SD) is from Sisseton. She’s chair of the state tribal relations committee.
She wants to sit down with DSS and tribal partners about where to go next.
“Identify any gaps or what we can do to strengthen current policies and how the state and tribal partners are working with the federal law.”
Native American children make up about 60% of kids in the welfare system. That’s according to State Rep. Peri Pourier (Lakota/D-SD), who represents the district that covers the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Rep. Pourier says this is a big moment for Indian country.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling is a resounding recognition of the inherent rights of tribal nations to protect their children and the imperative of preserving our cultural identity, political statues as tribal citizens.”
Rep. Pourier says there’s work still to do.
Last session, Rep. Pourier and other native lawmakers sought to establish a task force to look closer at the issue.
That bill, and another that would codify ICWA, failed.
Stephanie Amiotte is the legal director for the ACLU South Dakota.
She says while the ruling is a victory for tribal sovereignty, the state should pass its own ICWA legislation.
“We think that the legislature should definitely look at that again and this time they should pass it.”
The state legislature meets at the beginning of each calendar year.
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