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By Trace
It seems those at Goldwater Institute will do anything to procure more babies for infertile wealthy white couples. Their lawyers are searching laws to get their way and dismantle the Indian Child Welfare Act.
It's not working. ICWA was created to address people just like Goldwater.
Motion to Dismiss
here.
Footnote 8:
Plaintiffs do not seek the type of relief – increased funding or systemic changes in the quality of child-welfare services provided by state agencies
– that the Ninth Circuit found unworthy of Younger abstention in
Jamieson, 643 F.2d at 1354; instead, they demand that this Court enjoin
state courts and agencies from applying long-standing state and federal
laws to their ongoing child-custody proceedings, which clearly warrants
equitable restraint under Younger.
(emphasis added)
Also:
Membership in a federally recognized Indian tribe, or
being born the child of a member of such a sovereign entity, is not a
forced association. ICWA does not require association, but rather
protects associations that already exist.
In addition, Casey Family Programs plus twelve other national child welfare organizations filed this
amicus brief (gold standard brief).
Finally, it is a key best practice to require courts to
follow pre-established, objective rules that operate above the charged
emotions of individual cases and that presume that preservation of a
child’s ties to her parents is in her best interests. See National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, supra, at 14. Application
of the best-interests-of-the-child standard should be guided by
substantive rules and presumptions because “judges too may find it
difficult, in utilizing vague standards like ‘the best interests of the
child,’ to avoid decisions resting on subjective values.” Smith v.
Organization of Foster Families for Equal. & Reform, 431 U.S. 816,
835 n.36 (1977). Courts should not terminate a child’s relationship to a
parent based on “imprecise substantive standards that leave
determinations unusually open to the subjective values of the judge.”
Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 762-763 (1982).
Finally, the national Native organizations (NCAI, NICWA, AAIA) also filed this
amicus brief (historical brief).
The Indian Child Welfare Act must be viewed in light of
the historical abuses that it was intended to stop. For most of American
history prior to ICWA’s enactment, federal Indian policy favored the
removal of Indian children from their homes as a means of eroding Indian
culture and tribes. State and private child welfare agencies later took
on the implementation of these policies, carrying them out with little
concern for the families or communities they affected. By the 1970’s,
the widespread and wholesale removal of Indian children from their
parents and communities resulted in a crisis recognized as “the most
tragic and destructive aspect of American Indian life today.” H.R. REP.
No. 95- 1386, at 9 (1978), reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 7530, 7532.
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