Contact: Elizabeth Sharon Morris, Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, 701-430-9210
GRAND FORKS, N.D., Feb. 26, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ -- Today, the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare is filing an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court on a child custody case involving the Indian Child Welfare Act, (Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl 12-399). The High Court will decide this case by the end of the term in June 2013. "Our children are not chattel for tribal government." said Elizabeth Sharon Morris, Co-Founder and Chairwoman of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare and mother of enrolled children.
CAICW is asking the Supreme Court to reverse the holding made by the Supreme Court of South Carolina and return Baby Girl to the family chosen by her Latino birth mother. Two-year-old child of just 1.12% Cherokee ancestry, was removed from the only home she ever knew solely due to the ICWA. Had South Carolina law been applied in this custody case, the petitioners would have had no standing.
Though proponents of the ICWA argue that the act has safeguards to prevent misuse, numerous multi-racial children across the USA have been hurt by it. Children who have never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal customs have been removed from homes they love and placed with strangers chosen by Social Services. Sometimes the homes they are placed in would have been deemed unsafe for children of other heritages.
The statutory and constitutional issues addressed in this case impact the equal protection, due process, liberty, and state rights provisions of children in need of care. A child's best interests should be considered in every child custody determination. There is no presumption that residing with members of a child's tribe is in the child's best interests, particularly when the child is lives off the tribe's reservation. Further, tribal governments lack inherent jurisdiction over nonmembers. Application of the ICWA to cases involving the parents who are not tribal members violates the equal protection provision of the federal constitution, even if the parent lives on the tribe's reservation.
In the words of Dr. William Allen, former Chair, US Commission on Civil Rights (1989) & Emeritus Professor, Political Science MSU, "... we are talking about our brothers and our sisters. We're talking about what happens to people who share with us an extremely important identity. And that identity is the identity of free citizens in a Republic..."
Brief Link.
The Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW) was formed for charitable, religious, and educational purposes as both a ministry and advocacy group. CAICW been advocating since February 2004 for families at risk of harm from the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Our advocacy has been both judicial and educational, as well as a prayer resource for families and a shoulder to cry on.
