A roundup of some of The Imprint’s most impactful stories from the past year
It grew increasingly likely as 2021 progressed that the Supreme Court will hear a case known as Brackeen v. Haaland. At stake: the future of the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, a law that seeks to protect the rights of tribes and families that was passed at a time when an estimated one-third of Native American children were removed from their homes.
Both sides in the case have asked the high court to take on Brackeen, and decide the fate of law.
The Imprint used a collection of recent casework in Minneapolis to examine the modern-day importance of a law that was passed more than 40 years ago to prevent the extinction of some tribes as children were ripped from their ranks and placed with white families.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals produced a ruling in Brackeen that spanned hundreds of pages and left states in the circuit with a confusing array of new rules when it comes to ICWA.
In the mid-2010s, the Lummi Nation, which sits on Washington’s Pacific coast near Canada, had more than 200 children in foster care. The tribe has drastically reduced that number with Sche’lang’en Village, a novel housing arrangement for parents seeking to reunite with their children in foster care, homeless families, those overcoming addictions and women fleeing domestic violence.
Listen: Rebecca Nagle, host of the hit podcast This Land, joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to discuss ICWA and the second series of the show, which focused on the Brackeen court case.