![\"5thcircuitcourtofappeals\"](\"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/07\/5thcircuitcourtofappeals-scaled.jpg\")
\r\n<\/p>\r\nThe 5th Circuit Court of Appeals<\/a> has finally issued a long-awaited decision in a closely-watched Indian Child Welfare Act<\/a> (ICWA) case.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe decision in Brackeen v. Haaland<\/em>, formerly known as Brackeen v. Bernhardt<\/em>, is extremely lengthy. Counting the court’s per curiam<\/em> opinion and the concurrences and the dissents<\/a>, it clocks in at 325 pages.\r\n <\/p>\r\nAt issue is the legality of ICWA, which Congress passed in 1978 to address the large numbers of Indian children that were being taken from their homes and placed outside of their communities. In short, some parts of the law have been upheld while other parts, along with regulations implemented by the Bureau of Indian Affairs<\/a>, have been deemed in violation of the “anticommandeering” doctrine of the U.S. Constitution.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe decision was released later in the afternoon on Tuesday. It comes more than 14 months after the case was reargued before the 5th Circuit<\/a> in January 2020.\r\n <\/p> <\/p>\r\nThe plaintiffs in the case are non-Indian families who dispute the constitutionality of ICWA. They were joined by the states of Texas, Indiana and Louisiana in seeking to strike down the law as one based on “race” rather than the legal and political relationship between tribal nations and the United States.\r\n <\/P>\r\nThe defendants are officials at the Department of the Interior<\/a>, including Secretary Interior Deb Haaland<\/a>, who recently joined the Biden administration as the first Native person to serve in a presidential cabinet. Secretary Xavier Becerra<\/a> of the Department of Health and Human Services<\/a> is also named in the case, which was filed back in October 2017. \r\n <\/p>\r\nThe Cherokee Nation<\/a>, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians<\/a>, the Oneida Nation<\/a> and the Quinault Nation<\/a> later intervened to defend the legality of ICWA. The Navajo Nation<\/a> joined the case as well, on the side of the federal defendants.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe first decision in the case was issued in October 2018<\/a>. Judge Reed O’Connor, who was nominated to the bench by George W. Bush, struck down ICWA as unconstitutional<\/a> because he said its provisions treat Indian children<\/a> differently based on “race.”\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe federal government and the tribes appealed. In August 2019, a panel of three judges on the 5th Circuit largely upheld the legality of ICWA<\/a>.\r\n <\/p>