ICWA

New Mexico lawmakers took a step this week toward further ensuring the rights of the state’s Native American children who get caught up in the child welfare system.

The State Indian Child Welfare Act measure, which passed the state House of Representatives on a vote of 53-15 on Monday, mostly mirrors federal legislation that passed in 1978, but it expands protections somewhat and ensures that even if the federal law is watered down in the future, the rights of New Mexico’s Indian children and families won’t wane.House

A Minnesota tribal community and county have announced a partnership that aims to better serve Native parents and kids in family and criminal cases through more coordinated court processing.

The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and Itasca County, located in northern Minnesota, will design and pilot family-centered solutions for people in criminal or dependency court cases.

Under legislation introduced in Congress recently, the United States would officially own up for the first time to its attempt to eradicate Indigenous culture through its policy of forcibly separating Native children from their parents and “civilizing” them in Christian boarding schools. 

Less than 2% of Minnesota’s population is Native American, according to Census data. But the most recent federal child welfare data shows more than one-third of children in the state’s foster care system were identified as being at least part American Indian in 2019.

Soon central South Dakota’s wind-swept prairies will be home to a new village — one that aims to create a community on the Cheyenne River Reservation for children who would otherwise be sent off the reservation to far-flung foster homes.

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.

We’re counting down 10 of the biggest stories The Imprint published in 2019. Each day, we’ll connect readers with a few links to our coverage on a big story from this past year.

The Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law outlining adoption and foster care regulations for American Indian/Alaska Native children in the United States, turns 41 on Nov. 8, 2019.

ICWA, as the law is commonly known, has faced dozens of legal challenges over its lifetime and finds supporters and opponents both within and outside Native communities.

Today a federal circuit court reversed a lower court’s ruling by affirming the validity of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a law passed in 1978 to protect Native American families and children when nearly a third of Indian children were being removed from their parents and placed mostly with white families.