Indian Child Welfare Act Pits 573 Tribes Against Texas Couple

Photo: Allison V Smith for the NYTimes

From the NEW YORK TIMES

The 3-year-old boy who could upend a 40-year-old law aimed at protecting Native American children barreled into the suburban living room, merrily defying his parents’ prediction that he might be shy.

He had a thatch of night-black hair and dark eyes that glowed with mischievous curiosity. As he pumped a stranger’s hand and scampered off to bounce on an indoor trampoline, his Superman cape floated behind him, as if trying to catch up.

The Indian Child Welfare Act DOESN'T protect Native Children from Tribes which HARM THEM via Disenrollment  

Zachary, or A.L.M. as he is called in legal papers, has a Navajo birth mother, a Cherokee birth father and adoptive parents, Jennifer and Chad Brackeen, neither of whom is Native American. The Brackeens are challenging a federal law governing Native American children in state foster care: It requires that priority to adopt them be given to Native families, to reinforce the children’s tribal identity.The Indian Child Welfare Act, developed to protect Native children from the horrors of the past when Indian children were taken from their families, has come between a child and her foster family. Ostensibly designed to protect Native children, to ensure they are kept with Native families, this case of Lexi, a foster child in CA is making news.



READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE