{"id":18713,"date":"2021-12-01T13:20:40","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T18:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=18713"},"modified":"2021-12-01T13:20:40","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T18:20:40","slug":"freedom-socialist-conservative-attack-on-indian-child-welfare-act-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/12\/01\/freedom-socialist-conservative-attack-on-indian-child-welfare-act-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom Socialist: Conservative attack on Indian Child Welfare Act continues"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Indian Country Today’s daily newscastRebecca Nagle, host of “This Land’ podcast, is breaking down a legal battle that will potentially harm protections in th…<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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Indian Country Today: Newscast – ‘This Land’ tackles attacks on ICWA – November 2, 2021<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Native children and sovereignty targeted in right-wing lawsuit<\/div>\r\n
Wednesday, December 1, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Lois Danks<\/div>\r\n
Freedom Socialist<\/div>\r\n
Vol. 42, No. 6, December 2021-January 2022<\/div>\r\n
socialism.com<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nDetermined right-wing forces have piled onto the Brackeen v. Haaland<\/em> court case in order to overturn the hard-won Indian Child Welfare Act<\/a> (ICWA) of 1978. They charge that ICWA is \u201cracist against whites\u201d because it defends Native children being raised in their own culture and families; and \u201cunconstitutional\u201d because it disrespects \u201cstates\u2019 rights.\u201d This legalistic war may soon end up in the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe Brackeen custody case, moving through the legal system since 2016, started with an Evangelical white couple in Texas who sued to adopt a Navajo child against tribal wishes. Right-wing think tanks Goldwater Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Cato Institute have backed Brackeen and several anti-ICWA cases in the past. The Brackeens are represented (free of charge) by the Gibson Dunn law firm, which also represents huge oil transfer companies Enbridge and Energy Transfer, of the Dakota Access and Line 3 pipelines. Fossil fuel corporations have been the worst violators of Native land rights and treaties. They covet the land and resources.\r\n

<\/p>\r\n Native American nations recognize this war as far more than a custody trial. It is a wholesale assault on Indian children and families, and an undisguised attempt to delegitimize Native sovereignty and erase Indigenous culture. It is clearly a battlefield in the far right\u2019s intensifying campaigns against critical race theory, transgender rights, voters\u2019 rights, and reproductive rights \u2014 parts of the war on working people, women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ folks.\r\n

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Native children continue to be overrepresented in state foster care systems, taken from their homes at high rates.<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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Treaties take priority. <\/div>\r\n\u201cStates\u2019 rights\u201d demands used by Confederate states to prolong Black slavery in the 19th century are now being mounted to prolong racism in the 21st century. The lawsuit has involved not only Texas, but Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nHowever, declarations that individual states have the right to control adoptions regardless of federal regulations such as the ICWA have no basis. There are 573 federally recognized tribes who have a government-to-government relationship with the United States. These tribes were nations with their own laws, land rights, and cultures long before the U.S. Constitution was ever written. And the Constitution upholds these treaties in Article 6 as the \u201csupreme Law of the Land,\u201d taking priority over any conflicting state laws. If ICWA is not upheld, it could lead to future attacks on tribal land rights, casino income, tribal law and ultimately the sovereignty of Indigenous nations.\r\n

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A victory celebrated. <\/div>\r\nPassage of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 was won after years of struggle to stop the separation of Native children from their families and tribal communities. In Washington state, Puyallup tribal elder Ramona Bennett was one of many warrior women who worked tirelessly to find and support native families to foster and adopt tribal children. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nIn 1976, she confronted social workers who thought white religious families with higher incomes provided better homes than Indian extended families. Unwavering local organizing led to a Washington state Indian child welfare policy, which became a model for the national Act. Bennett met with congressional committees and national tribal leaders in Washington, D.C., in 1978 to press for the ICWA. \u201cWe protested, had kidnap warrants against us,\u201d she reports, \u201cwe made it a federal issue and it worked!\u201d This new legislation has proven best for all foster children.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nIWCA slowed abusive removal of children from Native families and culture for 40 years. But it still needs much stronger enforcement and monitoring. \r\n

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Aric “Dusty” Armell, a veteran and council member for the Winnebago Tribe, holds an eagle staff while leading participants of the 19th Annual Memorial March to Honor Our Lost Children in Sioux City, Iowa, on November 24, 2021. Photo by Kevin Abourezk<\/A>