House Natural
Resources
Committee
holds hearing
on ICWA
By Neely Bardwell
WASHINGTON —
At a U.S. House Natural
Resources Committee virtual
roundtable on the Indian
Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
May 9, lawmakers heard from
experts about the dark legacy
of the U.S. government
removing Native children
from their homes as well as
personal anecdotes about the
impact of growing up as a
Native child in a non-Native
community.
The roundtable, which
examined the threat to the
constitutionality of ICWA,
featured four panelists who
provided expert testimony.
Panelists included: Maggie
Blackhawk (Fond du Lac
Band of Lake Superior
Ojibwe), professor of law
at New York University
School; Jack Trope, Senior
Director for Indian Child
Welfare Programs at
Casey Family Programs;
Veronica Krupnick, Foster
Youth Advocacy Programs
Coordinator of CASA First;
and Karen Returns to War,
Co-Chair of the Northern
Arapaho Tribe.
In her testimony, Maggie
Blackhawk, connected the
dots between Native children
being taken from their homes and placed in Indian boarding
schools to Native children
being placed in foster
care and being placed for
adoption, during testimony.
“Over time, as states
assumed more responsibility
for the welfare of Native
children, they began removing
those children from their homes
at unprecedented levels,”
Blackhawk said. “Eighteen
states were explicit that
privatizing support for Native
children would further reduce
welfare costs and fill remaining
federal funding gaps because
Native children required far
fewer welfare dollars when
placed in the home of a
middle class or wealthy foster
or adoptive family than in the
home of a Native family living
in poverty.”
ICWA was passed in 1978
and provided guidance to state
governments in handling child
abuse and neglect, and adoption
cases involving children with
tribal citizenship. The law
set minimum standards of
accountability and consideration
in the event a Native child ends
up in the system.
Before ICWA, Native
children were systematically
separated from their families
and communities by state
and private adoption agencies
without evidence of harm or
neglect. Eighty-five percent
of these children were placed
in non-Native homes. Now,
ICWA requires caseworkers
in each state to make “active
efforts” to keep Native children
within their communities.
Public interest in ICWA
is at an all-time high due to
the impending Supreme
Court decision of Brackeen v.
Haaland, a case that challenges
the act’s constitutionality.
Arguments took place last
November, and a decision is
expected in late June.
The primary argument
against ICWA is that it
discriminates on the basis of
race and prioritizes the interest
of tribes over the needs of
Native children.
Tribal nations and the
U.S. Department of Interior
responded to the argument of
race discrimination by arguing
that ICWA is not race-based
but instead based on the fact
that American Indian tribes and
their citizens are a political class,
and to challenge ICWA is to
challenge Tribal sovereignty.
“Like many other child
welfare and adoption
organizations, Casey Family
Programs considers ICWA to
be the Gold Standard for child
welfare,” Thorpe testified at
Tuesday’s roundtable. “ICWA
emphasizes keeping children
safely with their parents/
guardians whenever possible
or, if they cannot be kept with
their parents/guardians, keeping
them connected with their
relatives, communities, and
cultures. We know children
thrive with their families and in
their communities.”
Krupnick shared her
personal experience with the
child welfare system —she
herself was an Indigenous child
taken from her community.
“My value, my self-worth
became directly tied to how
much I believed my now adopted parents and family
wanted to keep me,” Krupnick
said. “And with this driving
belief—as a child, as a teen, as
a young adult—I didn’t even
realize I was hurting myself
trying to mold into a person
that I would never be and
abandoning pieces of myself
that were incredibly essential to
my well-being and my healing.
So instead of finding joy and
connection and healing in
my identity as an Indigenous
person, these were replaced with
feelings of guilt, anger, shame,
and even embarrassment.”
In answer to the question if
Congress had the constitutional
right to pass the ICWA as posed
by the Brackeen v. Haaland
case, Blackhawk responded:
“The historical record
confirms that the care and
education of Native children fall
squarely into the constitutional
powers of Congress. The
constitutional challenges to
Brackeen are unfounded and
could result in the deeply
ironic situation where the
constitutional values that we
have elevated to reckon with
other constitutional failures —
specifically, the institution of
human enslavement and Jim
Crow segregation — might be
used to further the American
colonial project today.”
House Natural
Resources
Committee
holds hearing
on ICWA
By Neely Bardwell
WASHINGTON —
At a U.S. House Natural
Resources Committee virtual
roundtable on the Indian
Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
May 9, lawmakers heard from
experts about the dark legacy
of the U.S. government
removing Native children
from their homes as well as
personal anecdotes about the
impact of growing up as a
Native child in a non-Native
community.
The roundtable, which
examined the threat to the
constitutionality of ICWA,
featured four panelists who
provided expert testimony.
Panelists included: Maggie
Blackhawk (Fond du Lac
Band of Lake Superior
Ojibwe), professor of law
at New York University
School; Jack Trope, Senior
Director for Indian Child
Welfare Programs at
Casey Family Programs;
Veronica Krupnick, Foster
Youth Advocacy Programs
Coordinator of CASA First;
and Karen Returns to War,
Co-Chair of the Northern
Arapaho Tribe.
In her testimony, Maggie
Blackhawk, connected the
dots between Native children
being taken from their homes and placed in Indian boarding
schools to Native children
being placed in foster
care and being placed for
adoption, during testimony.
“Over time, as states
assumed more responsibility
for the welfare of Native
children, they began removing
those children from their homes
at unprecedented levels,”
Blackhawk said. “Eighteen
states were explicit that
privatizing support for Native
children would further reduce
welfare costs and fill remaining
federal funding gaps because
Native children required far
fewer welfare dollars when
placed in the home of a
middle class or wealthy foster
or adoptive family than in the
home of a Native family living
in poverty.”
ICWA was passed in 1978
and provided guidance to state
governments in handling child
abuse and neglect, and adoption
cases involving children with
tribal citizenship. The law
set minimum standards of
accountability and consideration
in the event a Native child ends
up in the system.
Before ICWA, Native
children were systematically
separated from their families
and communities by state
and private adoption agencies
without evidence of harm or
neglect. Eighty-five percent
of these children were placed
in non-Native homes. Now,
ICWA requires caseworkers
in each state to make “active
efforts” to keep Native children
within their communities.
Public interest in ICWA
is at an all-time high due to
the impending Supreme
Court decision of Brackeen v.
Haaland, a case that challenges
the act’s constitutionality.
Arguments took place last
November, and a decision is
expected in late June.
The primary argument
against ICWA is that it
discriminates on the basis of
race and prioritizes the interest
of tribes over the needs of
Native children.
Tribal nations and the
U.S. Department of Interior
responded to the argument of
race discrimination by arguing
that ICWA is not race-based
but instead based on the fact
that American Indian tribes and
their citizens are a political class,
and to challenge ICWA is to
challenge Tribal sovereignty.
“Like many other child
welfare and adoption
organizations, Casey Family
Programs considers ICWA to
be the Gold Standard for child
welfare,” Thorpe testified at
Tuesday’s roundtable. “ICWA
emphasizes keeping children
safely with their parents/
guardians whenever possible
or, if they cannot be kept with
their parents/guardians, keeping
them connected with their
relatives, communities, and
cultures. We know children
thrive with their families and in
their communities.”
Krupnick shared her
personal experience with the
child welfare system —she
herself was an Indigenous child
taken from her community.
“My value, my self-worth
became directly tied to how
much I believed my now adopted parents and family
wanted to keep me,” Krupnick
said. “And with this driving
belief—as a child, as a teen, as
a young adult—I didn’t even
realize I was hurting myself
trying to mold into a person
that I would never be and
abandoning pieces of myself
that were incredibly essential to
my well-being and my healing.
So instead of finding joy and
connection and healing in
my identity as an Indigenous
person, these were replaced with
feelings of guilt, anger, shame,
and even embarrassment.”
In answer to the question if
Congress had the constitutional
right to pass the ICWA as posed
by the Brackeen v. Haaland
case, Blackhawk responded:
“The historical record
confirms that the care and
education of Native children fall
squarely into the constitutional
powers of Congress. The
constitutional challenges to
Brackeen are unfounded and
could result in the deeply
ironic situation where the
constitutional values that we
have elevated to reckon with
other constitutional failures —
specifically, the institution of
human enslavement and Jim
Crow segregation — might be
used to further the American
colonial project today.”