ICWA

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program, a group of 11 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships.

The Imprint is highlighting each of the policy recommendations made this summer by the participants of the Foster Youth Internship Program (FYI), a group of 11 former foster youths who have completed congressional internships.

To examine the Indian Child Welfare Act and its impact, The Imprint reviewed summaries of 40 cases handled last fall by a leading nonprofit law firm in Minnesota, where Native American children are removed from their parents at a rate unseen elsewhere in the country. The review revealed that the federal law has a clear benefit for the children it is designed to protect — and without it, those rights would be greatly diminished.

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.