Something good you can do is help protect tribal sovereignty by making your voice heard on ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act.
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
ICWA is a 1978 federal law that protects Native American children and gives their tribes jurisdiction over child custody proceedings.
Before ICWA, state welfare and private adoption agencies separated our Native children from their families, taking away about a third of Native children to place in non-Native homes.
Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone is leading the charge, making claims that ICWA is race-based and discriminates against non-native parents. Additionally, they’re claiming states’ rights. It’s important to note that Judd is a member of the conservative organization The Federalist Society. One of the organizations that seem to enjoy helping to support taking people’s rights away and turning back the clock a billion years.
Non-Native and Native Children
There are plenty of non-native children in need of homes in America. In August 2021 in Texas, for instance, there were nearly 29,000 children in foster care and 6,000 waiting for adoptive families.
For Native children, being taken from extended family or Native communities interrupts an ongoing sense of cultural identity.
According to a study by the American Indian and Alaska Native Suicide Prevention Resource Center, American Indian children who grow up in non-Indian families are more likely to attempt suicide than those who grow up in Indian families. The study found that American Indian children who grow up in non-Indian families are twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who grow up in Indian families.
ICWA needs to remain in place. In those tribal custody hearings, the individual child’s best interest is always considered, so there is no need to overturn ICWA. The Supreme Court is set to decide on it in June 2023.
What You Can Do
Here are some ways to speak up for our Native friends. There are petitions to sign:
- https://action.lakotalaw.org/action/protect-icwa
- https://www.change.org/p/protect-the-indian-child-welfare-act
- You can find plenty of other ICWA petitions online by doing a Google search.
You can also respectfully contact the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), here is their contact information:
Write a letter and address it to:
Public Information Office
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543
Call the Supreme Court’s public information office. The phone number is 202-479-3000.
Email the Supreme Court’s public information office. The email address is pio@supremecourt.gov
Finally, if you wish to make a respectful plea to Solicitor General Judd Stone, his number is 512-?936-?1700.
And please go read about ICWA for yourself so you know more about it.
Other source(s): https://www.tribal-institute.org/lists/chapter21_icwa.htm
Speak up!