ICWA

Indian Law Issue of the Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here:

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process – Winter 2023 Issue Now Available

The Winter 2023 issue of The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process(Volume 22, Issue 1) is now available. This special issue focuses on appellate issues in and around Indian country. It features the following articles:

State ICWA Law Updates (MN, WY)

Kate Fort

This week both Minnesota and Wyoming adopted new state ICWA laws.

After nearly a year of dedicated work by stakeholders, including tremendous tribal leadership, Minnesota updated the Minnesota Indian Family Preservation Act.

Minnesota-2023-SF667-Engrossed

In addition, due to tremendous tribal leadership, the state of Wyoming adopted the entire federal ICWA into state law, creating the Wyoming Indian Child Welfare Act. This act was signed into law by the governor yesterday.

Enrolled Wyoming ICWA Bill

I’m getting a lot of calls and emails about state ICWA laws in light of the pending Brackeen case. A good state ICWA law that is specific to the state practices (see Oregon ICWA law or MIFPA as an example) can take months to complete, especially to ensure participation by all stakeholders, including tribal, parental, and state interests. Until Brackeen is released, it is very difficult to preemptively legislate, or legislate in a way that protects ICWA from the Court’s ruling. However, for states that have no state ICWA laws, if there is the political will to follow the Wyoming lead of incorporating the entire federal law into state law, this would be beneficial if the Court rules that ICWA violates commandeering concerns (ie. states can’t be forced to follow ICWA because it is federal law commandeering their agencies). 

But it is important to remember that the Court can rule in a myriad of ways, there is no way to predict the outcome, and it is entirely possible that states will have to revisit their state laws in light of the decision–even those that replicate ICWA. I particularly like the Wyoming model of also passing a law creating *and funding* a taskforce to develop a state specific ICWA as well. 

We keep state ICWA laws here: https://turtletalk.blog/icwa/comprehensive-state-icwa-laws/.

U.S. Senator Instrumental to ICWA Has Passed Away

Kate Fort

https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/02/24/james-abourezk-senator-dakota-dies/

Senator James Abourezk passed away on Friday. He was 92 years old. He was the first chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. In that role, he was the lead Senator pushing for ICWA, and held hearings for over three years, taking testimony on what was happening to Native families across the country.  He sponsored S.1214,  the Senate bill that led to the House bill which became ICWA. He held the 1974 Hearings, as well as the 1977 and 1978 Hearings.  NARF has collected his letters, where he expressed unreserved support for Native children, families, and tribes. Here is the opening paragraph of one of his letters on the eve of voting:

Throughout the course of this legislation the authors of this bill have been charged with having placed the interests of Indian tribes and the parents of Indian children above the interests of the child itself. I have always rejected this charge. The central concern of this legislation is the welfare of Indian children. Both the Senate and the House version are based on the assumption and indeed the finding that the interests of Indian children are best served by preserving their relationship with their natural family whenever possible, and when that is not possible, placing them with a family or in a setting which shares their own cultural values and heritage.

ICWA was a result of the hard work of so many people, but Senator Abourezk was instrumental in not only its passage, but in preserving the testimony of Native parents, leaders, and elders about the time before ICWA. His kindness to those who were testifying about horrible treatment they received is evident in the record, as was his indignation at that treatment. He did all of this in a single term in the Senate, and was also instrumental in ISDEAA and AIRFA. From the Washington Post:

Mr. Abourezk represented South Dakota for single terms in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate during the 1970s, where he exemplified a brand of Democratic politician known as Prairie Populist. He fought passionately — and with humor — for those he felt were the downtrodden: farmers, consumers and Native American people.

Mr. Abourezk was the first chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and successfully pressed for the American Indian Policy Review Commission. It produced a comprehensive review of federal policy with American Indian tribes and sparked the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the Indian Child Welfare Act — a landmark piece of legislation meant to cut down on the alarming rate at which Native American children were taken from their homes and placed with White families.

I never got to meet the Senator, but it is still very difficult for me to put into words the impact of his single Senate term. I can’t help but think that his leadership in the Senate, with his unreserved support for Native families and tribes, is especially needed now.

Jacob Jurss on ICWA and Brackeen

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is “Counterpoint: Tribal rights, futures must not be plundered again” in the Minnesapolis Star-Tribune.

News on Proposed State ICWA Laws

Kate Fort

Over the past few weeks, a number of states have been considering state ICWA laws. I’m keeping the bills updated here, along with their current status when I’m notified of it. https://turtletalk.blog/icwa/comprehensive-state-icwa-laws/

Today the AP had news coverage of the bills here

Finally, here is a link to the testimony that took place yesterday in the Minnesota Senate.

This bill is supported by the ICWA Law Center, one of the only organizations that provides direct, trial level legal services to Native families, and they do it very well. They are currently holding a fundraiser with Heart Berry:

https://www.heartberry.com/products/protect-icwa-pre-sale-hoodie

And listen, I’m not responsible if you follow that link and then get sucked into buying a whole bunch of stuff from Heart Berry because it’s basically impossible not to. I don’t make the rules.

Emergency Hearing Standards Case from Montana [ICWA]

Kate Fort

A.J.B. and O.F., Petitioners, v. MONTANA EIGHTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT GALLATIN COUNTY (2023) FindLaw

I won’t lie, guys, I had to read this one multiple times to figure out what was going on. Essentially the Montana legislature passed a law without understanding the difference between hearings that fall under 1912(a) and 1922. 1912 governs foster care proceedings and requires notice, active efforts, qualified expert witness testimony, etc. 1922 governs emergency proceedings (1922 has language that all states essentially read out of the statute to achieve this jurisdiction, which only makes sense to ICWA practitioners and no one else). Emergency proceedings do not require notice and the other 1912 protections, but it has a higher standard for removal (imminent physical damage or harm). The Montana statute denied parents of Indian children a faster emergency hearing because of the belief that 1912 standards (specifically notice) had to be hit before there could be a reason. The Court overturned this language.

Also interesting is the issue of trying to appeal proceedings that are emergency/shelter care/24 hour/48 hour/preliminary hearings in child protection proceedings. There’s often not a final order coming out of those hearings, and no way for a parent or tribe to appeal an emergency decision (this was an issue in the In re Z.J.G. case in Washington as well). Here, the District Court argued there was no way for the appellate court to hear the case because of the nature of the hearings.

Finally, the District Court argues this matter does not meet the threshold criteria for a writ of supervisory control because no urgent or emergency factors make appeal an inadequate remedy. The court alleges that in this case, it was later determined that O.F. is not an Indian child, and A.J.B. and O.F. have been “conditionally reunited.” However, as A.J.B. asserts in her petition, she does not appear to have any remedy on appeal for the denial of her right to an EPS [emergency] hearing, and the potentially erroneous loss of the right to parent, even for a short time, is a matter of great urgency.

Here the appellate Court heard the case anyway and overturned the statute.

Of course, you may also remember the federal case in South Dakota attempting to remedy emergency hearing practices there in ICWA cases that was dismissed on appeal because the federal court stated there were Younger abstention issues.

Fort & Smith on ICWA During the Brackeen Years

Kate Fort

Forthcoming in the Juvenile & Family Court Journal

From 2017 through 2022, while the Indian Child Welfare Act (“ICWA”) was under direct constitutional attack from Texas, state courts around the country continued hearing appeals on ICWA with virtually no regard for the decision making happening in Haaland v. Brackeen in the federal courts. For practitioners following or working on both sets of cases, this duality felt surreal, as they practiced their daily work under an existential threat. The data in this article draws from the authors’ previous publications providing annual updates on ICWA appeals, and now includes cases through 2021. It provides a description of appellate data trends across this time period, as well as for each year, while also highlighting key appellate decisions from jurisdictions across the country. Perhaps what this article demonstrates more than any single thing is the amount that ICWA is a part of child welfare practitioners’ daily lives now, in a way that will be difficult to upend, regardless of the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision.

This is particularly recommended for practitioners–we’ve taken the data from all our past articles to put them into one. One of our charts still needs a labels fix from our data expert, Alicia Summers, but otherwise the article has undergone peer review and will be published soon.

Application of ICWA to Third Party Custody Petition out of Montana

Kate Fort

2023-da-22-0405

The Court agreed that ICWA applied to a third party custody petition where the parent could not get her child back upon demand, but rejected the argument the child must be returned immediately under 1920.

These type of third party cases are particularly important to keep an eye on, as agencies often push cases in this direction to avoid filing a petition on a parent (this itself is a complicated topic). Regardless, parents and tribes shouldn’t lose certain rights under ICWA if the placement meets the definition of a foster care placement under the law.

Neoshia Roemer on Un-Erasing American Indians and the Indian Child Welfare Act from Family Law

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Neoshia Roemer has posted “Un-Erasing American Indians and the Indian Child Welfare Act from Family Law,” forthcoming in the Family Law Quarterly, on SSRN.

Here is the abstract:

In 1978, Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) as a remedial measure to correct centuries-old policies that removed Indian children from their families and tribal communities at alarming rates. Since 1978, courts presiding over child custody matters around the country have applied ICWA. Over the last few decades, state legislatures, along with tribal community partners and advocates, have drafted and enacted state ICWA laws that bolster the federal ICWA laws. Despite four decades of ICWA, trends in child welfare demonstrate that Indian children are still vastly overrepresented in the child welfare system. Because tribal communities, advocates, community partnerships, and scholars work tirelessly to both ensure and improve ICWA compliance, ICWA still provides some of the best outcomes for Indian children through both family reunification and/or placement within their tribal communities.
However, family law often minimizes or mischaracterizes what the Act does. While ICWA is a complex law and even an entire semester may not fully provide justice to the breadth of the Act, this characterization of ICWA creates a stigma around the law. Family law scholars and practitioners can no longer overlook ICWA in conversations and teachings. Stigmatizing ICWA in the classroom contributes to the erasure of American Indians from our society at large and from our classrooms. This allows legitimized racism against this community to seep into both the classroom and the practice area.
Accordingly, this article discusses how family law classrooms can incorporate ICWA into conversations on family law as a step in eliminating bias in the legal academy and in the profession against American Indians. This article describes some of the history around ICWA, how family law feeds into the erasure of American Indians in the legal field, some misconceptions about ICWA, and how we can tie ICWA and other issues impacting American Indians into our classroom teachings on family law.