A federal law aimed at preventing non-Indian families from adopting Native American children is discriminatory and unconstitutional and should be struck down, parents told the Supreme Court on Nov. 9.
The Biden administration supported the federal law at the court sitting, while a lawyer representing Texas argued the federal law filled with racial-preference standards is an example of overreach that interferes with state adoption policy.
At a three-hour hearing, the justices considered the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which was enacted by Congress in 1978 to prevent non-Indian families from adopting Native American children. The statute was a reaction to concerns that Indian children were being removed from their traditional homes and Indian culture and placed in homes that had no connection to their culture. The Bureau of Indian Affairs used to pay states to carry out the adoptions….