Trafficking Native American children

Here it is. The revisions to the ICWA soooo badly needed.


“The final rule builds upon the work of tribes and states by clarifying the Indian Child Welfare Act’s requirements, promoting consistency in Indian child-placement proceedings, and ensuring that regardless of the state court forum, children and their parents receive the active efforts envisioned by Congress to maintain family and community,” Roberts said. “Child welfare workers, state court judges and state agencies deserve clear rules as they work with Native families and tribes to implement the protections of the law. This rule promotes family and community by ensuring that if a Native child has been removed from their home previously, they will have a pathway for reunification with their family.”

Under the new rule, all state courts in foster-care, termination-of-parental-rights, and adoption proceedings will now be required to ask whether the child is an “Indian child” under the definitions articulated in ICWA and subject to the law’s procedures; prompt notice of involuntary proceedings; and minimizing unnecessary separations of Indian children from their families. Additionally, the rule requires that “active efforts” will replace “reasonable efforts” with the overall goal of reunifying the child with his or her family.

“Reunification with a child’s family is a standard the United States strives for in child welfare,” said Roberts. “It’s the gold standard and best practice and ICWA is the minimum federal standard, because tribal families continue to be broken up because of inconsistent application of the law. We are concerned that without these federal regulations that the disparities among Indian children in state custody may continue.”


Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/06/08/breaking-bia-publishes-final-icwa-rule-164738

Here is the ICWA working as it should minus the 5 year crap of hell this "adoptive family" put her & her family through.
On Friday, the California Second District Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that a 6-year-old Choctaw girl known as “Lexi,” will be staying in Utah with her family. In the scathing 38-page decision, the three-judge panel ruled against foster parents Summer and Russell Page, citing their “self interest,” their pattern of interference with and resistance to Lexi’s visits with her extended family and their inability to facilitate an ongoing relationship with her siblings as part of a constellation of “substantial evidence” that there was no good cause to depart from the placement preferences enumerated under the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/07/09/icwa-lexi-remain-utah-family-appeals-court-ruling-165086

Still battling racism & trying to keep our children from getting stolen.

"Defend ICWA founder Karl Minzenmayer noted that the organization's namesake, the late Senator Barry Goldwater, voted in favor of ICWA during its passage in 1978. Further, says Minzenmayer, who is a pre-ICWA adult adoptee of White Earth/Fond du Lac Ojibwe descent, A.D. v. Roberts is motivated by “greed and profiteering” in an industry that rakes in copy4 billion a year.

“We're tired of seeing ICWA portrayed as 'evil' in the media,” says Minzenmayer. “We're fed up with the Goldwater Institute's lies and dissembling of a law that is, in fact, working and is helping to keep family first in Indian country. ICWA pertains to citizens of federally recognized Nations. It's a law based on citizenship – not race. We're trying to spread awareness of ICWA's critical importance to Native communities across the country.”

The case has angered many within the American Indian adult adoptee community, who believe the law should be upheld and strengthened. Their protest on Friday is one of many protests across the country as the litigation moves forward.

“What has Goldwater ever done for Indian children before they began fighting against the law that protects them? Their portrayal of themselves as 'saviors' of Indian children is same colonial mentality that has destroyed our communities for last 250 years,” says Minzenmayer. “As an adult adoptee who has had first-hand experience with the adoption industry and its tactics, we will no longer be silent as our children continue to be taken from our families and communities.”"


Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/09/22/group-protest-goldwater-institutes-anti-icwa-suit-phoenix-165868

Damn, now we have to fight Mercer, Koch Brothers, Goldwater Trust & a slew of Anti-First Nation self determination folks with mega bucks!
"A Right-Wing Think Tank Is Trying to Bring Down the Indian Child Welfare Act."

Tired of the asshats!