Three states say Indian Child Welfare Act, aimed to protect children, should be abolished

The legality of ICWA, as the Act, is now being challenged. It was created in the 1970's to protect the best interests of Native American children as well as promote the stability and security of tribes and families.
Texas, Indiana and Louisiana filed suit claiming the law was unconstitutional because it treated Indian children differently than every other American child.
READ: Three states say Indian Child Welfare Act, aimed to protect children, should be abolished

Matthew L.M. Fletcher on The New Trail of Tears #TNToT

reblog

Sixth Commentary on TNToT — Chapter 5: “Taking Indian Kids Away from Their Homes and Families”

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Matthew L.M. Fletcher | Turtle Talk (his comments are in red)

This is the sixth full commentary on “The New Trail of Tears” (TNToT), a book written by Naomi Schaefer Riley (NSR or the author). The announcement post is here.

• The first commentary, “Framed by a Friend,” is here.
• The second commentary, “Turning Indian History against Indians,” is here.
• The third commentary, “Indians are Saudi Arabia, Not Israel (Oh, and Crying Toddlers)” is here.
• The fourth commentary, “”Indians as Unmotivated, Dependent Victims” is here.
• Monte Mills’ guest commentary is here.
• The fifth commentary: “Tearing Down American Indian Educators and Parents” is here.
• Commentary on NSR’s DAPL column is here.

Chapter 5 is an outrage, with NSR implicitly advocating for the complete eradication of tribal communities because Indian tribes and the federal government have made them unlivable. This chapter deals with the Indian Child Welfare Act and Indian country justice. NSR continues to condemn Indian people for the same dog whistles — they’re lazy, ignorant, and dependent.
ICWA (or, Indian Country is Hell)

TNToT tees up a series of anti-ICWA advocates here, but never really makes the argument for why ICWA is bad. NSR’s goal here is to try to show that Indian country is an unlivable hellhole. NSR believes that “for too many children the best option is be raised elsewhere” [at 146]. TNToT quotes Elizabeth Morris (a vociferous anti-ICWA voicebox for the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare), who hopes that her own children won’t grow up in Minnesota Indian country [at 145]. Morris blames the federal government’s “subsidies” for her perception that Indian families are disintegrating. [at 150] For Morris, the government has “replace[d] the father in the home. . . .” [at 150] Further, “A man does need to feel needed. But the government took care of all that.” [at 150]
Morris is an evangelical Christian who firmly preaches the “drunken Indian” stereotype as fact. She also believes that Indian children should be raised by white families: “If they seriously wanted to protect children, they would have to send them off the rez and give them to white foster homes.” Morris is affiliated with the “Citizens Equal Rights Alliance,” a white nationalist group. These are NSR’s people, leading her down the primrose path to conclude: “[T]he reservation [is] no place for . . . children.” [at 167]

NSR also relies upon Mark Fiddler (the man who wants as many Indian children in foster care as possible: “If anything, there should be more Indian children put into foster care.”). Like Morris, Fiddler condemns Indian parents and reservation homes, referring to a “cycle of dysfunctional parenting.” [at 152] Fiddler also alleges: “And a disproportionately high number of Indian children are in danger every day.” [at 149-50] Foster care in off-reservation homes as a solution to the real problems in Indian child welfare is a really bad idea. I addressed these claims here:

Studies show what should be inherently understood—plucking children out of a community they know and putting them in stranger foster care is actively harmful to kids (there’s a reason Casey Family Programs is putting a billion dollars into reducing the number of kids in foster care). Eighty percent of child welfare removals are due to neglect. Our children do deserve better: better services, better wrap around care, a better understanding of the mental health issues and chemical dependency that plagues their parents. They don’t deserve to be taken from everything familiar—their neighborhood, schools, and extended family—because of system failures in our society.

Opposition to ICWA often comes from the private adoption market, as I wrote here:

Who benefits if ICWA tumbles? As usual, the answer can be found by following the money. Start with the beneficiaries of the $14 billion private adoption market. The adoption industry long has been a foe of ICWA. Conversely, Indian tribes do not profit from the termination of parents’ rights.
ICWA requires the state to seek an Indian family to adopt where possible, but private adoption agencies don’t get paid unless an adoption with a paying family goes through. In both direct placement adoptions and adoptions following failed reunifications with parents, money works against reunification with families and ICWA compliance. Some foster parents are encouraged by private agencies to become foster-to-adopt parents, altering the goal of foster care from reunification to termination for adoption. And being told they will be able to adopt their Indian foster children just as soon as the parents’ rights are terminated creates an adversarial relationship – not one that encourages the stated goal of reunification. In addition, fees charged by private and religious adoption agencies taint direct placement adoption petitions.

There is a candid statement in TNToT about the origins of ICWA: before ICWA, states removed Indian kids because the families were poor: “These standards, of course, would be enough to remove plenty of white children from their homes as well.” [at 149] I’m not sure if NSR is advocating for more foster care for all poor families regardless of race, or if’s an admission that there’s a problem in child welfare more generally.



Indian Country Criminal Justice
NSR also alleges a “serious law enforcement problem” in Indian country. [at 154] She’s pretty late to this ballgame — the Amnesty Report “Maze of Injustice” arrived in 2006, followed by the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the tribal jurisdictional provisions of VAWA in 2013, and then the Indian Law and Order Commission Report in late 2013.

NSR lays a lot of blame. TNToT blames Indian country schools for not cracking down on Indian kiddos [at 153]; white guilt (I think): “There’s so much guilt about racism, that they don’t want to shine a light on crimes taking place now.” [at 157]; fetal alcohol syndrome [at 158]; tribes for being ineffective [at 164]; the complexity of Indian country criminal jurisdiction (“The jumble of legal jurisdictions has made it all but impossible to adequately police some reservations.”) [at 167]. On that last point, NSR should have read something about tribal-state-local public safety cooperation agreements, which occupies an entire chapter of the Conference of Western Attorneys General handbook on Indian law. Cooperation is the norm.

TNToT offers no solutions whatsoever to these problems (other than, I guess, depopulating Indian country). NSR doesn’t think more power to tribal governments would be effective (“doubtful”) [at 162-63], but doesn’t say why, other than to allege that there would be “less effective policing and prosecution”. [at 164] NSR laments that due to tribal political power, states will never be authorized to be the solution [at 164]. There’s a lot of baloney in TNToT, but even the United States Supreme Court doesn’t buy that states could be a solution:

Even when capable of exercising jurisdiction, however, States have not devoted their limited criminal justice resources to crimes committed in Indian country. Jimenez & Song, Concurrent Tribal and State Jurisdiction Under Public Law 280, 47 Am. U. L. Rev. 1627, 1636–1637 (1998); Tribal Law and Policy Inst., S. Deer, C. Goldberg, H. Valdez Singleton, & M. White Eagle, Final Report: Focus Group on Public Law 280 and the Sexual Assault of Native Women 7–8 (2007)[.]

[United States v. Bryant, 136 S.Ct. 1954, 1960 (2016). If NSR talked to more people than her anti-Indian informants, TNToT would be much better and more intellectually honest.

General Notes:
Statehood for Indian Tribes!!!!
William Allen recommends statehood for Indian tribes, at least the larger ones. [at 167] Well, okay then.

Indian Self-Determination
Ha! I’m laughing at myself because I earlier stated TNToT doesn’t discuss Indian self-determination, well, it’s in Chapter 5 a little bit. Here’s NSR’s take, quoting on William Allen, a Bush I era Civil Rights Commission appointee who apparently last thought about Indian country in 1991 when the Commission published an absolute hackjob on tribal governments: “After [ISDEAA], you began to get a steady stream of people coming back into the reservation, because it came with some pretty targeted federal funding.” [at 167] This sounds like a good thing!
Not for NSR, who then claims in the very next sentence: “Today it’s the most vulnerable people who remain on the reservation. They’re the ones with little education, little sense of what life outside the reservation might offer them, and little ambition.” [at 167] Holy cow! So first there’s a steady stream of professional Indians going back home to administer self-determination contracts (according to Allen), but for NSR the only Indians left in Indian country are ignorant and unmotivated (yes, that’s dog whistle politics again). Maybe TNToT needed a better editor. Aside from this contradicting evidence (Allen is right, NSR just dislikes Indians), NSR still doesn’t get self-determination right, even when she quotes Allen on it.

Indian Country Civil Rights
Still channeling Allen’s 1991 report on civil rights, NSR claims, “No one has made them aware of their rights as American citizens.” [at 167-68] Indian people are not that stupid. NSR sounds like a staffer on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs c. 1965 before the enactment of the Indian Civil Rights Act. Still can’t take this seriously until NSR acknowledges that Indian tribes and Indian people have property rights.

More: “So the question is who will stand up for the civil rights of individual Indians? Who will say it’s not simply the collective interests of the tribe or the personal interests of tribal leaders that matter?” [at 68] The tribes with tribal judiciaries are doing a pretty good job, better than federal courts, where apparently it’s not a problem when an African-American employee given a promotion is welcomed into his new job with the placement of a hangman’s noose in his office. [PDF] Speaking of tribal judiciaries. . . .

Tribal Courts
For NSR, just bad. “The court systems often can’t guarantee the rights of victims or of defendants.” [at 168] NSR is backed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which testified against the VAWA tribal jurisdictional provisions. [at 163] Finally, NSR relies on an entity not affiliated with the conservative right.
Still, it’s an overbroad statement. I serve on 8 judiciaries, all of which make their laws available and guarantee the right to counsel in cases where jail time is possible. None of the elements complained about by NACDL are present with these tribes. Broad, generalized statements like these are borderline irresponsible, and NACDL knows it.

TNToT includes an argument recited by the Independent Women’s Forum that wants victims to have access to same courts as everyone else [at 163]. So does everyone! Outside of Indian country, assaulted women can turn to their local first responders (even that’s not so great). Not so in Indian country because tribal police (who are the first responders usually) and tribal courts have either no jurisdiction (non-Indians) or limited sentencing authority (Indians). And we already know from the Supreme Court in Bryant that states and feds have failed. Tribes are the only realistic effective justice provider and they’re hamstrung, even with more jurisdiction (I argued this here).

More Biased Sources
Other than NACDL, NSR quotes the same kind of people who are advocates for less government and tend to think liberals are PC Nazis. We get a Walter Olson sighting on page 147. He’s a Cato Institute scholar; tends to get critically important facts about ICWA cases wrong, as I pointed out he did here. There’s a reference to the Independent Women’s Forum, a group heavily funded by Koch-affiliated billionaires and foundations. See also here.

NSR also tells the story of Johnston Moore to criticize ICWA [at 147-48] Moore lost an ICWA case, and began a crusade against ICWA (joining Elizabeth Morris). A blog titled “Ethical Christian Adoption” has pointed out some of the unethical actions of both:

Instead of pushing to make sure that family is involved, Moore has involved himself in FOUR  ICWA cases wanting to deny children permanency with their natural families.   In the case of Veronica Brown (Capobianco), he ignored the numerous ethics violations that were at the start of this case and even the dishonesty of the adoptive parents and biological mother in favor of using this case to overturn ICWA.   A majority of the misinformation that was sent out about this case was through a public relations firm headed by Jessica Munday.     I only bring this up because instead of distancing himself from the case when the lies came out into the open, he decided instead to found an organization with Jessica Munday and Lisa Morris (who runs the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, a group considered by many natives to be a racist hate group, indeed, a group with its own ethical questions to answer) called the Coalition for the Protection of Indian Children and Families.

More Bigotry

As would be expected, NSR spends some time on the Spirit Lake Nation ICW tragedy from a few years back. There’s not much to say about it other than the federal government stepped in when it went out of control. Where NSR goes off the rails is in her comparison of the tribe to a Muslim community in England that allegedly engaged in mass child abuse.  [at 156-57] This is yet more dog whistle politics, with the added wrinkle of pandering to the Trumpian-era bigotry against Muslim people, too.

Allegations of Tribal Corruption
We’re in the last full chapter, and NSR still keeps alleging tribal corruption without any backing evidence whatsoever, claiming things like tribal social service workers are “incompetent”, there’s no oversight from the state or BIA, court orders are slow, there are different “standards” than state courts, and the judges related to parents [at 159-60]. Still no evidence. Nothing.
Excepting Spirit Lake, which was a real tragedy to be sure (and not unique to Indian tribes as pointed out here: “child abuse scandals happen in state government more“). That horrible scandal has no analogs in Indian country (and hopefully never will).

Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl
TNToT covers the tragedy of the Baby Girl case, excluding critically important facts that her informants don’t want her to report: 1) Birth Father was an active duty serviceman; (2) Birth Fathers’ due process rights generally prohibit the relinquishment of parental rights by text message; (3) several months delay by the adoptive couple before serving Father of adoption papers; (4) and Baby Girl with her dad for years before forced back to South Carolina.
There’s actually an important and candid admission in TNToT about the case: “If the paperwork had been done correctly, the child would have been with him the whole time. There would’ve been no question about ICWA’s relevance.” [at 146-47]

Larry Long’s Study: “understanding contextual differences in American Indian criminal justice”
NSR really lays blame on Indian men for violence in Indian country. NSR concludes that since 60 percent of the criminal docket in South Dakota federal courts involves Indian defendants, that means most of the crimes are committed by Indians [at 164]. That logic (I should say logical fallacy) was the House Republican minority’s argument against enacting the 2013 VAWA tribal jurisdictional provisions. Ryan Dreveskracht destroyed the notion years ago:

What the House Report did not note is that the SDAG study was limited to the State of South Dakota and used only police prosecution records. This police data, of course, did not include the numerous instances in which on-reservation perpetrators went free due to the very jurisdictional gap indicated above (which, by its nature, excludes non-Indians), where police had refused to investigate the crimes, or where the crimes went unreported. The House Report’s reading of this study has been contradicted by numerous independent reports, including recent studies conducted by the Department of Justice and Amnesty International. Indeed, as noted by the National Congress of American Indians:

Upon analysis, [the SDAG study] supports [the] concern that domestic violence crimes committed by non-Indians are often unprosecuted. The DOJ statistics measure reported assaults. [The SDAG study] compares that to prosecutions, and concludes that most of the defendants in South Dakota are Indians. That is [the] point–non-Indians commit many assaults on Indians, and they are not prosecuted. This is particularly true in South Dakota.

What is more important, who cares if it is eighty-eight percent or thirty-one percent of sexual predators who are allowed to violate Native women and get away scot-free? The fact that House Republicans take the position that Indian rape and violence is tolerable up to some point between those two numbers is absolutely deplorable. Were this the case in any other part of the country, affecting any other racial demographic, such atrocities would surely not be tolerated.

‘Nuff said.

[as Matthew pointed out in his critique of this new book TNToT, we have had missionaries and governments and their colonization and destruction long enough on our lands. This book only adds to the racist rhetoric out there, and undermines Indian self-determination and sovereignty... Trace]

Indian Child Welfare Act is Leading the Way on Child Welfare Practice

January 22, 2020Christine James-Brown

Photo: iStockphoto

Child welfare is a complicated and varied system. Most people, who have not worked in the field of child protection, foster care and adoption — the child welfare system — are not familiar with the many services and practices involved. But anyone can understand that, fundamentally, child welfare practice should be governed by the question: “What is in the best interest of this child?”

Right now, that question is being put to the test in one of the most controversial federal court cases this year. Last August, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to rehear oral arguments in Brackeen v. Barnhardt, a case challenging the constitutionality of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA. In 2018, a federal judge in Texas ruled ICWA unconstitutional, in contrast to decades of precedent and deep, bipartisan support for the law.

My own organization, the Child Welfare League of America, is among the hundreds of child welfare groups that heartily supports ICWA for a simple, obvious reason: because it enables state child welfare agencies and courts to act in the best interest of Native American children.

ICWA requires that state courts consider the relationship that Indian children have with their extended family, siblings and community. While the first priority in an effective child welfare system is to limit the separation of children from parents whenever possible and to encourage reunification after a separation has occurred, that is unfortunately not always possible or safe. The next best option is placing children with their extended family.

Experts consider ICWA practices as universal best practice standards in child welfare because ICWA requires that states consider the cultural context of tribal nations and their citizens. According to federal data, American Indian and Alaska Native children have the highest rate of kinship care (also known as living with relatives) among different populations in foster care.

ICWA’s requirements ultimately serve the best interest of children in stability, relational permanency and community connections. Children living with relatives are less likely to be moved multiple times to other caregivers and more likely than those living in non-relative foster care to be successfully reunified with their parents, among other beneficial outcomes. ICWA’s placement preferences, requiring that children live with extended family if possible, promotes this outcome.

The welfare of our children is too important for us to risk dismantling a system widely acknowledged to be best for children. Placing value on familial and community ties makes a difference in the well-being of children. My firsthand experience advocating for children, and supporting child welfare agencies in developing and implementing best practices and policies for child welfare decision-making, tells me that the U.S. District Court’s conception of the best interest served by ICWA was far too narrow.

What is it that we as a nation, a society, as communities and families, need to do to keep children safe, healthy, and able to reach their full potential? Systems can only work to the extent that the community supports them. Because evidence shows that ICWA’s framework achieves better outcomes for children, it should be no surprise that Congress increasingly has encouraged state child welfare frameworks to look more like ICWA to the benefit of all children. The system should reflect the community and it should reflect ICWA, the “gold standard” in child welfare. If anything, we should do more to support ICWA and use it as an example for improving other child welfare laws.
ICWA’s placement preferences work. They help to keep children connected to family, community and culture. Let’s not destroy a legal success story that has helped the lives of countless children and families, and should continue to do so for decades to come.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Christine James-Brown is the CEO of the Child Welfare League of America.

Defending ICWA

The Necessity of the Indian Child Welfare Act HERE

Congress today has substantial and sweeping powers over Native nations and Native people, including the authority to abolish tribes and tribal reservations, and to expand or restrict tribal authority. These powers come from a series of Supreme Court decisions in the late 1800s and early 1900s that were based on racist views about American Indians—that Congress needed virtually unlimited authority over American Indian affairs because Natives were not equipped to govern themselves. The Court reasoned that Natives’ “weakness and helplessness” gave the federal government “broad domain” over them; later cases pointed to Natives’ “condition of tutelage or dependency.” Those decisions gave Congress more power when it comes to Native affairs than it has when it comes to taxing or spending or regulating interstate commerce.

But over time, these cases have come to produce different results. These same decisions have empowered Congress, in recent years, to protect Native families from various new and old forms of discrimination, imperialism, and white supremacy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is poised to decide whether that will remain so. It will hear the case later today.

Oral Argument

More articles:

Morongo tribe heading to 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to defend Indian Child Welfare Act  

Cherokee Nation to be present at rehearing of Brackeen case  

Happy for New York Adoptees

19 Jan 2020 by TAO

SOURCE 

Adoptees from New York now have the right to their original birth certificates; in the first 48 hours 3600 online applications were made. There’s an estimated 650,000 adoptees from New York per this article: New York Adoptees Rush to Request Birth Certificates, After Years of Blocked Access. Adoptee Rights Law has details on how the new law works: Updated Info on New York’s New Law
Congratulations to everyone who has fought to change the law in the last 40 odd years and to all adoptees from New York. Now the challenge is to get the changes made to the NY Law known by adoptees from NY, seems easy but there are still adoptees from states who have changed the law regarding their original birth certificate, who have no idea they can order theirs.  🔻

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Not everyone is pleased about the change and that makes me incredibly sad. People with no stake in adoption always seem to feel the need to weigh in with dire warnings and predictions every time a state does the right thing for adoptees.
New York Daily posted an article on the changes made to the law in New York re adoptee rights on their FB page; the comments in quotes below are from the responses. Interesting how little has changed in the last 20 years, lots of “experts” on why an adoptee should never be allowed to know the names of their parent(s) by birth. As you read the comments below understand that many adoptees have heard them at least once in their life, regardless if their state has changed the law. (note each quote below is from a different person in this FB post.)

“I don’t know about this. Might open up to many cans of worms that people can not handle.”

As a fan of old sayings I can say this is not one I’m a fan of; probably because people have been saying this to adoptees since adoption became a thing.

“be careful what you wish for sometimes ignorance can be bliss.”

Another tried and true old saying to adoptees, said by someone who will never understand what it is like to live 45 years (my story) before they met any member their family of birth.

“So less people will put kids up for adoption now.”

So adoptees just need to suck it up, get over it and be grateful they were lucky they weren’t aborted…Gotcha

“If a person gives a child up for adoption and doesn’t make an attempt to stay in their life, there’s probably a reason… Meaning they probably don’t want to speak to you 18 years down the line even if you’re looking for something important like your medical history.”

Noted by someone who has no knowledge of adoption history, or adoption at all, but just needed to school adoptees for wanting to have the same rights they have – access to their factual certificate of birth.

“It sounds like a good idea, but there have to be measure to protect people. Suppose you wanna find out who your biologicals are to mess up their life?”

Ah, yes, the angry adoptee who wants to do something bad, I mean, we obviously didn’t come from good people because they’d have kept us, so you never know what our intention would be…(and yes, I’m being snarky here)

“In today’s technological world there should be a data base that has current medical records available for the adopted without revealing the parents identity. Especially in the case of a parent who doesn’t want to be found for a variety of justifiable reasons.”

No, it’s about having the right to your factual birth certificate. The parents are can say: “I don’t want a relationship”. And when that happens it does suck, it happened to me, my father wouldn’t even provide the one request I had, a family health history.

“So what exactly are you giving them, copy of their birth certificate and copies of their birth parents medical history. Last time I check the birth certificate doesn’t have that info and there is no guarantee real paents or family will be welcoming. Sounds like a stretch and a deterrent from people adopting. Just my opinion.”

The above comment is the flip side of the prior comment: “So less people will put kids up for adoption now.”. And honestly, if people aren’t open to an adopted person knowing their biological kin, it’s probably for the best they don’t adopt. Knowing your biological kin takes nothing away from the relationship you have with your family; if it was honest and good, it will remain honest and good unless you choose to mess it up.

“except that a lot of people that give their children up for adoption do not want to be found or have any communication with the child. Its a painful process especially for those that don’t want to give them up but had no choice due to hardship and there are some adopters that prefer no communication with those parents for themselves and the child.”

Again, there’s a remedy for that: “I don’t want a relationship”, although one would hope they’d have grace to at least answer some questions. The last part about the AP’s? The adoptees are adults and have the right to have a relationship with whoever they want in their lives. Good adoptive parents with fears will stretch and if that isn’t enough, they seek advice and do their best to understand and adjust, just like we’ve adjusted to what other’s need our entire life.

“what about the biological mother who did everything to not abort that baby but lived through 9 months of sacrifices. According to Hollywood, that mother gave up her future for that child don’t you think she should have some rights too?”

This one made me laugh out loud because Hollywood is the authority on adoption? The rest isn’t worth commenting on.

“not everyone has their DNA on record to know family medical history or find family members. And I am not sure what you mean by your own records. In the modern world you will have a birth certificate and your own medical history. There are dozens of reasons why someone might want to stay anonymous and that is their right. Keep in mind they could have had an abortion. And does anyone really want to know they are the product of rape, incest, a priest and a nun or many other horrible circumstances? I agree people should have access to family medical history. But if someone didn’t have an abortion because of anonymity of adoption you might not want to cross that line.”

The previous commenter had noted correctly that with DNA testing there is no such thing as privacy, and yet, the commenter has no clue about how DNA links a family together. Also note the horror stories the adoptee could face; again, nothing new there, adoptees have had a lifetime being told those dire events may be our story.

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Adoptive parents and agencies: you hold the power to shape how the public views adoption and being adopted. It’s up to you to educate others that adoptees have two sets of parents and have the right to all their truths, good or bad.

Briefing Completed in Advance of This Week’s Oral Arguments in Brackeen [ICWA]

All documents here. Oral arguments are on Wednesday. The Court releases a recording of the arguments which we will publish when available.

Principle Supplemental Briefs:

Appellant Tribes En Banc Brief

Appellant Feds En Banc Brief

2019-12-13 Intervenor Navajo En Banc Brief

Individual Plaintiffs_Supplemental Brief

State_Supplemental Brief

Amicus Briefs pro-ICWA:

States

Indian Law Profs

Tribes and Tribal Orgs

Con Law Profs

Members of Congress Brief

Amicus_Casey_EnBanc

Ablavsky-Originalism Brief

Native Women and ACLU

Amicus Briefs anti-ICWA

CAICW_Amicus

NCLA_Amicus

Ohio_amicus

Project on Fair Representation_amicus

Goldwater Institute, et al_amicus

Briefing Completed in Advance of This Week’s Oral Arguments in Brackeen [ICWA] by Kate Fort

The Fight for Birth Records in New York #OBC

Tim Monti-Wohlpart always knew he was adopted, but what he didn't know is how hard it would be to find his birth parents.
Because he was adopted in New York, he had no legal right to see his original birth certificate."We don't just have a policy about having sealed records; we have a culture of secrecy," Monti-Wohlpart said.
After a health scare, Monti-Wohlpart was determined to track down his biological mother, in order to fully understand his medical history. It took two years, a lawyers, investigators, and money.
"When I found my birth mother, it afforded me the opportunity to find out more complete information about myself, heal in many ways, and celebrate my fuller identity," he said.
From there, Monti-Wohlpart took his case to the state legislature, on behalf of all adoptees.
"The first New York bill of adoptee rights was introduced during the Cuomo Administration — the Mario Cuomo Administration, I believe 1994," Monti-Wohlpart said. "I lobbied for the first 'clean' New York bill of adoptee rights, meaning unrestricted access to original birth certificates for adult adoptees in 2002 and 2003."
More than 15 years later, Monti-Wohlpart is still fighting.

Source: The fight in New York for adoptees to access their birth records

READ: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/01/17/run-dmc-darryl-mcdaniels-dmc-seeks-his-birth-records-with-a-new-new-york-law?cid=share_clip

Selling babies for cash?

Earlier post

How trafficking in children works

WHAT WE KNOW:  How Paul Petersen's Marshall Islands adoptions worked

Adoptive parents said Petersen was regarded as a family man and a trusted source for adoptions, particularly among the Latter-day Saint community (Mormons) in Arizona, Utah and Arkansas.

The Cost of Fleeing Climate Change | The New Yorker

While migration from the islands to the United States has been increasing, thanks largely to remittances from family members who are already here, much of the population that wants to migrate cannot afford a plane ticket. When Lamy got pregnant with Neslina, at the age of nineteen, she was overjoyed, but quickly realized that she would be raising her on her own, with no support from Neslina’s father. 
When she got pregnant a second time, a year later, she was scared. She started speaking with her relatives to see if there was someone else who might help. 
Adoption between relatives and in-laws is common throughout the Marshall Islands, and children often live freely between households—raised, in fact, by a village. 

According to one study, as many as twenty-five per cent of all Marshallese children are adopted. But most birth parents are still able to see their children regularly and maintain relationships with them into adulthood.

Rumors circulated that Marshallese women, as one former employee for the Arkansas Department of Human Services told me, “were selling their babies for cash.” 

That was not the case, but, as Kathryn Joyce wrote in The New Republic, in 2015, over the past decade, adoptions of Marshallese babies were occurring in the Springdale area at an alarming rate, with many of the mothers feeling pressured into a situation that they could not escape. 

Joyce profiled one Marshallese woman, Maryann Koshiba, who had placed her baby up for adoption believing that she would be able to keep in touch with the adoptive parents and see her child in the future. But, in Arkansas, the law dictates that all adoptions are closed—the birth parents’ identities are sealed and unavailable to the adopted child, and the adoptive parents’ identities are sealed and unavailable to the birth parents. (Arrangements can be made to circumvent that law and keep identities transparent.) 

Koshiba, however, did not know anything about closed adoption and became increasingly frantic when she was unable to contact the adoptive parents or find out anything about her baby. “Welcome to the world of legal realities,” Paul Petersen told The New Republic. If law-enforcement officials “really want to stop it, then they should bar all Marshallese people—women—­from coming to the U.S. unless they have a medical examiner show they’re not pregnant.”

READ: The Cost of Fleeing Climate Change | The New Yorker

Suicide among Adoptees

By Trace Hentz (Blog Editor)

Today: I wrote on wordpress: BEDLAM: The Epidemic of Broken Minds

(from an earlier post)

This is not my usual post about adoption. But one thing that adoption can cause is (drum roll) – SUICIDE.

I used to think about this when I was writing my memoir – why would someone take this drastic measure?

It’s obvious to me now. When guilt or grief take over your mind and your life, there is apparently no other apparent option (or few options on your list seem good enough for you to live longer and face the music for whatever you may have done or had done to you.)

If you visit a psychologist, they will talk to you and possibly drug you as an adoptee.  As a joke, I wrote on a post-it “I AM IN BIG TROUBLE.”  It’s true that Big Pharma is out to medicate you for just about everything – including: arrogance, narcissism, above-average creativity, cynicism, and antisocial behavior…(and those are just the new ones!)

Now I am not worried about this for me but I am worried about this for some adoptees who have not had any (emotional) support and feel isolated and possibly crazy.

A quick check of the keyword: SUICIDE will show you some of the recent headlines here.

I’d found a statistic that adoptees do commit suicide more often than others, statistically speaking. WHY? Unresolved (untreated) (not recognized) (buried) GRIEF!

The good news is: I read this about how GRIEF IS SUBVERSIVE here.  It is definitely something that can be healed!

My journalist friend Suzette shared her response on FACEBOOK: In general, I find “therapy” as it currently is, as useless. I found my own method and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and you don’t spend time circling and circling the same airport and never getting resolution. And guess what? You may never get resolution. But then that even becomes okay. “We’re supposed to heal from grief.” Is that really true? No. But you can integrate it, whatever “it” is and keep moving... Conventional therapy has it backwards and frankly enables people to keep them emotionally broken, (in my honest opinion)…”

Growing up, I was not aware of the various medical terms for adoptee issues such as severe narcissist injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. I am sure no one in my family even considered I might have a problem with being adopted… Since 2004, I read numerous studies about adoptees in treatment for “identity” issues (split feather syndrome), reactive attachment disorder (RAD), depression and/or suicidal thoughts.  Then I found statistics.  An adoptee friend in Toronto told me to read Adoption: Unchartered Waters by Dr. David Kirschner, a book about adoptees who are notorious serial killers. (I did read it.)

No, you didn’t see that book mentioned on TV or on OPRAH or anywhere else…

No, I am not saying that adoptees have more problems than the rest of the world, not at all. I am saying that something big hit us hard as babies (or small children) and some of us did NOT recover – and that is something a psychologist might drug you for… but listen to me:  DRUGS are not the answer to our problems.

The war is inside us. There is a heroin and opioid epidemic where I live, and probably where you live too. WHY? People (some are even adoptees) are so desperate to numb themselves they are self-medicating.

The school shooters who were diagnosed as children with ADHD and given drugs – ask yourself: what happens when they are older, on their own, in college – some go stark raving mad! (Mainstream media doesn’t disclose that many of the shooters were ADHD kids and medicated.)

ADHD Drug Warnings:

There have been 44 warnings from eight countries (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France and Singapore) warning that ADHD drugs/stimulants cause harmful side effects. These include the following (note that some warnings cite more than one side effect, so the list below may not be equal to the total number of warnings):

• 13 warnings on stimulants causing heart problems
• 10 warnings on stimulants causing mania/psychosis
• 9 warnings on stimulants causing cardiovascular problems
• 8 warnings on stimulants causing death
• 4 warnings on stimulants causing hallucinations
• 4 warnings on stimulants causing depression
• 4 warnings on stimulants causing violence, hostility or aggression
• 4 warnings on stimulants causing seizures
• 3 warnings on stimulants causing agitation or irritability
• 3 warnings on stimulants causing anxiety
• 2 warnings on stimulants causing suicide risk/attempts
• 2 warnings on stimulants causing addiction or dependence
• Read more here

So my hope is anyone reading this will consider SUICIDE as a flashing sign. STOP immediately and call a suicide hotline. If you know someone who is considering it, be their advocate and get them to make the call!

It’s a SIGN you need to change your life, your direction, your path. Not take drugs but CHANGE your mind. CHANGE your thoughts – not with drugs or self-medicating behaviors – no.

If Big Pharm has its way, we’d ALL be medicated and that my friends is one of the scariest ideas — EVER!

Each of us has the choice. Our mental (emotional) health is our problem! We all must learn to handle our emotions (with help, with support, with healing) and face the problem and GRIEVE when we need to!

For more on this crisis in Indigenous populations:

Indigenous child death rate in Queensland twice that of peers

14 Mar 2014: Suicide rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children more than five times that of non-Indigenous young, report finds…

[Sorry for all the links in this article but this topic needs much more discussion…]

Retweet if you've ever:

- self harmed
- attempted suicide
- been to a therapist
- have an eating disorder
- lied about being okay
- had a panic attack
-have anxiety through the roof

Sometimes I still feel so alone! #TrustOthers#MentalHealthAwareness #SuicidePrevention

— Jake Robinson (@bluebirds999) January 9, 2020

Will Congress Fulfill a 184-Year-Old Promise to the Cherokee?

11,000 children caught in jurisdictional limbo

The new federal law titled An Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth, and families (also called Bill C-92) came into effect Wednesday. Passed in the days before the federal election, the law proposes to establish protections for Indigenous children and their families, as well as hand over responsibility for Indigenous child welfare to Indigenous governments — who receive responsibility once institutions, policies and laws are developed and approved (presumably based on Indigenous cultural values, principles, and histories, but the law is vague on this).
The law has been criticized heavily for its paternalistic attitude, lack of funding and resources for planning and delivery, and necessary legal changes to ensure the handover is a success. Most First Nations have begun planning the process of implementation anyway. 

READ: 11,000 children caught in jurisdictional limbo

Remembering Karen Vigneault

Anyone with questions, reach out to Joyce: kumeyaay669@gmail.com.
You may also look for Joyce Vigneault (Vandyke) on Facebook.