A young Navajo boy is at the center of a child welfare case involving his Navajo mother and his non-Indian grandparents.

The boy lives with his mother and is close to his Navajo family. They live on the Utah part of the Navajo Nation.

His grandparents also live on the reservation and are requesting child-visitation rights they say have been denied to them. But they are asking a state court to resolve the dispute.

The mother in turn is asking a federal judge to halt the state court proceedings and let her case proceed in Navajo tribal court. She has already petitioned the Navajo courts to terminate the parental rights of the boy's father, whom she says is abusive.

Get the Story:
Boy at center of multi-court visitation-rights battle (The Salt Lake Tribune 1/31)