The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved a decades-old federal law that seeks to keep American Indian children with their families and tribes in custody proceedings.
In a 7-2 decision, the justices rejected a multi-pronged challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) on various grounds, keeping the law intact and handing a major victory to Indian tribes.
“But the bottom line is that we reject all of petitioners’ challenges to the statute, some on the merits and others for a lack of standing,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority.
Enacted in 1978 to combat the common practice of separating Native children from their families and tribes, ICWA imposes minimum standards for removing Native children and establishes default preferences for their adoption and foster-care placements.
The court first rejected claims that ICWA exceeded Congress’s constitutional authority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the decision, saying they would have struck down the law on those grounds.
Three white couples further asserted that even if Congress did have authority, the preferences in the law discriminated against them. Indian tribes and the Biden administration defended the law as making politically-based distinctions, rather than race-based ones.
But the court didn’t reach the merits of whether that provision is unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection, ruling that the challengers did not have legal standing to bring those claims.
“The racial discrimination they allege counts as an Article III injury. But the individual petitioners have not shown that this injury is ‘likely’ to be ‘redressed by judicial relief,’” Barrett wrote.
The couples were joined by Texas, which argued Congress couldn’t force state agencies to find preferred placements for Native American children or force state courts to comply with various recordkeeping provisions in the law.
“ICWA’s recordkeeping requirements are consistent with the Tenth Amendment,” Barrett wrote.
Texas had also challenged an ICWA provision that allows tribes to alter the default placement preferences, arguing Congress had improperly delegated its authority to the tribes.
The court found the state did not have standing to challenge that provision either, so the justices didn’t reach a conclusion on the merits.
Tribal leaders hailed the decision as a “major victory.”
“The Court once again demonstrated that it understands the legitimacy of ICWA and what it means for tribes, families, and children,” said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr., Morongo Band of Mission Indians Chairman Charles Martin, Oneida Nation Chairman Tehassi Hill and Quinault Indian Nation President Guy Capoeman in a joint statement.
“By ruling on the side of children’s health and safety, the U.S. Constitution, and centuries of precedent, the justices have landed on the right side of history,” they continued. “With these latest political attacks on ICWA now behind us, we hope we can move forward on focusing on what is best for our children.”
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a defendant in the lawsuits who also serves as the country’s first Native cabinet secretary, similarly celebrated the ruling.
“Today’s decision is a welcome affirmation across Indian Country of what presidents and congressional majorities on both sides of the aisle have recognized for the past four decades,” Haaland said in a statement.
Updated at 11:46 a.m.