Indian

Child welfare is a complicated and varied system. Most people, who have not worked in the field of child protection, foster care and adoption — the child welfare system — are not familiar with the many services and practices involved.

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was a response to alarmingly high numbers of Indian children being unnecessarily removed from their families and communities. Congress understood the best interest of Indian children were not served by state and private agencies and state courts, and that led to exceedingly high numbers of out-of-home placements, many unnecessary, and inflicting long term damage to Indian children, families, and communities.

The legal challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 40-year-old law passed to protect Native American families from child welfare system intrusion, has its next court date set. Oral arguments in the appeal of a federal district court decision to strike down most of ICWA is scheduled for the week of March 11 at the Fifth Circuit Court Appeals in New Orleans, according to counsel for one of the tribes involved in the case.

The Fifth District Court of Appeals has issued a stay in the case involving an October federal district court decision that struck down the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The decision means that states must follow ICWA at least until the court has decided on the case.

As we reported last week, several tribes have appealed the recent ruling striking down the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and are asking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a stay on the lower court’s ruling until the appeal is decided on.

Several tribes have formally appealed last month’s decision in a federal district court that the 40-year-old Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is in part unconstitutional. In Brackeen v. Zinke, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in favor of three states – Texas, Indiana and Louisiana – and several foster and adoptive couples, declaring that ICWA was a race-based law lacking a present-day articulation of its need.

Late last week, a federal judge ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was unconstitutional, leaving in jeopardy a 40-year-old law meant to protect a tribe’s ability to prevent the removal of children from Indian reservations or families.

A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a 40-year-old law that was passed to protect against the separation of American Indian children from their families and tribes by state-run child welfare systems.