The ACLU is applauding the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, after several constitutional challenges had been made to the law.
ICWA was passed in 1978, and prioritizes Native children being raised by tribal members. Stephanie Amiotte is legal director for the ACLU of North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. She says the United States has a long history of forced removal of Indian children from their families and culture. She says this law ensures Native families will continue to have protection.
"I think if you were to ask any non-Indigenous person what it would feel like to say, 'you can't be who you are, you can't speak the language you were born into, you can't practice the religion that your family, your community, your tribe practices - or even just the people around you practice.' It's devastating. And that is essentially what Indigenous people have gone through."
The Supreme Court’s decision was 7-2 in favor to uphold the law. Many states continue to remove Native children from their families at high rates – but fourteen states have adopted ICWA protections into their own laws, and several more states are making moves to do the same.