Indian Child Welfare Act - ICWA - Is A Disaster For Many Families
I found this press release online today and decided to share it with you. I live in a town dominated by and divided by a tribe. I’ve had people who had to deal with the tribal child welfare agents complain to me about the way they were treated. It used to be that we believed the Indian Child Welfare Act could help some families, but now it seems to be just another way for tribes to make money. I can tell you, the tribe here has been applying for grant money for years; recently receiving over 2 million dollars in grants. It is a huge money-grab, and child welfare money is certainly part of it.
I checked out the site mentioned at the end of the following article and read some heart-breaking stories. One story mentioned that a certain tribe had only 5,000 members, but they held over 1,000 children in foster homes. - LJM
Children’s Lives Destroyed by ICWA, Says CAICW
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Across America, children that have never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal customs are routinely being removed from homes they love and placed with strangers chosen by tribes.
Though proponents of the ICWA argue that the act has safeguards to prevent misuse, scores of multi-racial children are being negativelyaffected by application of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
Over decades, numerous tribal members have married non-members and moved off the reservations. Many chose to leave because they didn’t want their children raised amid the dangers rampant in Indian Country.
However, ICWA authorizes tribal jurisdiction over any child who is a member of a tribe, or eligible for membership and the biological child of a member. Tribal governments determine their own membership and most require only 1/4 blood quantum, The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma goes further and claims jurisdiction over any child with ancestry tracing back to the Dawes Rolls no matter how minute the blood quantum. Making matters worse, some states have recently passed laws barring courts from considering whether a child or his family have any real connection to the tribe. As a result, the following occurs:
“… it was discovered she (the birthmother) is 1/128th Cherokee. That makes my son 1/256 or .0039% Native American and 99.9961% not…. His mother…was very adamant about the Cherokee Nation NOT raising her child and the court records show this. In April of 2006, we were notified of the Cherokee Nation’s intent to take us to court and remove our son from our home…. Since then, we have been in a constant state of panic….”
Any emotionally healthy child, no matter their heritage, is devastated when taken from home and forced to live with strangers. Even children of 100% tribal heritage are devastated if they’re taken from non-tribal families they love and placed with strangers they know nothing about.
The Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW) is the only national organization advocating for families who have lost or are at risk of losing children due to misapplied and sometimes illegal application of the ICWA. The CAICW will be at the National Press Club at 12 noon, Tuesday, September 4, 2007, with affected families sharing about this growing problem.
Letters from birth parents, grandparents, foster families, pre-adoptive families, and tribal members themselves can be read at http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html.
