{"id":7872,"date":"2022-04-11T22:29:02","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T22:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/important-victory-for-the-preservation-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act-icwa\/"},"modified":"2022-04-11T22:29:02","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T22:29:02","slug":"important-victory-for-the-preservation-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act-icwa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/important-victory-for-the-preservation-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act-icwa\/","title":{"rendered":"Important victory for the preservation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On August 9th, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals published its decision in Brackeen v. Bernhardt <\/em>and affirmed\u00a0the validity of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a law\u00a0passed in 1978 to protect<\/a>\u00a0Native American families and children.\u00a0 Affirming the constitutionality of ICWA\u00a0recognizes the unique political status of tribal nations and upholds\u00a0the federal law critical to safeguarding Indian child welfare. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The decision is\u00a0a resounding victory for the law and those who fought to protect it. <\/span>ICWA is vital for protecting the well-being of Native children. Today\u2019s decision reaffirms tribal nations\u2019 inherent sovereign authority to make decisions about Native children and families wherever those children and families may live.<\/span><\/p>\n

The suit was elevated to the Fifth Circuit after an\u00a0October 2018 decision<\/a>\u00a0by U.S. District Judge Reed O\u2019Connor. The plaintiffs in the case included three states \u2013 Indiana, Louisiana and Texas \u2013 along with several non-Indian adoptive families. O\u2019Connor ruled that ICWA was race-based, countering years of case law that had affirmed the law was rooted in sovereignty protections for Native Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor said that, as a race-based law, ICWA lacked a present-day justification, and forced states to enforce federal standards.\u00a0 The Fifth Circuit rejected his reframing of ICWA.\u00a0 The Fifth Circuit also found that the 2016 Final Rule issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which offered guidance to states in an effort to improve the uneven implementation of ICWA from one state to another, is still valid.<\/span><\/div>\n

\u201cThis ruling is a strong affirmation of the constitutionality of ICWA and the inherent tribal authority to make decisions about the well-being of member children, whether they live on or off of tribal lands,\u201d said Sarah Kastelic, executive director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association, in a press release. \u201cICWA remains the gold standard of child welfare policy and practice; it is in the best interest of Native children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To view the court opinion, please visit: https:\/\/www.narf.org\/nill\/documents\/20190809brackeen-icwa-opinion.pdf<\/span><\/a> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you missed the Partners for Our Children brief about ICWA, you can read it\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirms Constitutionality on Aug 9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[94],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/partnersforourchildren.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}