This law was put in place to prevent children ending up in non native foster homes and losing their connection to their people. I think there has to be more about the story going on and this law isn’t new. It’s decades old

KNOW the Rules?

I am the birth mother of five enrolled kids. My husband, who fought ICWA up until he passed away, was 100% Minnesota Chippewa. In fact, our Home was CHOSEN by tribal social workers to take in four extra enrolled kids – so yup, I know a little bit about the rules.

You can call it inflammatory and racist all you want. I am talking from direct experience – having seen with my own eyes what has happened to various relatives. Having rescued kids from the street, fed kids who were hungry, protected kids from assault, and chased a drunk off a 10-year old girl, I will stand up for and protect those children while you sit on your politically correct throne and pretend it isn’t happening.

And it would be wonderful if EVERYONE would fully research what the law actually says and how it is applied!

The law applies to not only enrolled children, but children “eligible’ for enrollment. This means children whose parents might have specifically chosen NOT to enroll – but whom the tribe has decided – on its own – are eligible for enrollment.

Federal Indian policy gives tribal government alone the right to decide it’s membership, and if a tribe such as the Cherokee tribe decide that their membership includes any person whose ancestry can be traced back to the Dawes rolls, then so be it – the Cherokee tribe has that right.

This is how we are ending up with children with less than 1% heritage and no connection to the tribe being affected. This toddler in South Carolina – who is more appropriately seen as Latina – has less than 1% heritage yet was ordered to be taken from the only home she has ever known. This child had been placed in that home by her birth mother, who had no connection to the tribe.

There is a five-year-old in Texas who is less than 2% who the tribe has been attempting to remove – a child who was also placed by his birth mother. Last year, another infant of minimal heritage was threatened. This happens all the time – and I, being a lone person with no real network, only hear about a small number of the cases. How many are out there that I don’t hear about?

I have written this article as a private person – using personal experience.

But if you want to know more about how the law is truly affecting children? Read real letters from families at

FAMILY LETTERS: http://www.caicw.org/familystories.html

I haven’t had time to post all the letters CAICW receives – hope to get more up this winter – but you know – I am just one person and have a family of my own. Any volunteer assistance would be great, Policy Guru.

As far as the high standard of care – well, I happen to know first hand about the very low standard of care. My home was chosen by the tribe as an ICWA home. Children were placed under my care by ICWA social workers – and I and my home were woefully inadequate to take care of the special needs those children had.

We took them though, because we knew that if we didn’t they would simply go to another relative’s home – one even more inadequate than ours – or to a stranger on the reservation, and we had seen too much of what happens to kids to want to do that to these children.

But there was also virtually no home study done on us at all. We could have been murderers for all they cared. All that mattered was that my husband was a relative.

As I stated, I have also witnessed the very poor ICWA placements chosen for dozens of children.

So please, don’t try to snow people with rhetoric about how calling a spade a spade is inflammatory or racist. Maybe some tribal governments have high standards – but not all.

You can turn a blind eye on what is happening to children – and instead protect tribal government. But I care more about the kids.

No one said ALL homes are like this. What was said is that this is what I have personally experienced over a period of 30 years. If your home is not like that, fine. That has nothing to do with what I personally experienced.

PLEASE READ before you comment.

#1) This is about a little girl who just went through the worst kind of transfer that can be done to a child – with no transition time at all. If you are qualified as you say you are, then surely you must recognize how bad that was for a 2-yr old.

#2) Note the words “Some,” “not always,” and “in some cases” from the text:

1) Some children have been removed from safe, loving homes and placed in danger
2) Equal opportunities for adoption, safety and stability are not always available to children of all heritages
3) The Constitutional right of parents to make life choices for their children, for children of Indian heritage to associate freely, and for children of Indian heritage to enjoy Equal Protection has in some cases been infringed upon.

My granddaughter was given to her father in Arkansas recently. she had been hit witness her dad fighting in house where one had to go go. doctors n molested by a 25 year old man in the house yet theyet. the white peoples court seems to think its ok cuz they have. money for her future n stability. I am a Cherokee 1/2. these rich people don’t protect her, especially the father n his sister. they teach my granddaughter to not tell but me & her r close she tells me. yet I report this n nobody had gave her back to us. the white family have slot to lose money wise…so now they r saying me or. my daughter has done this had stuff to her. they want us arrested. they r sick people with lots of secrets. she crys to home home she hates there she’s only 4 can someone help me??! PLEASE 9185751042

When I read what our opposition has to say about how “white people” are stealing “their” children for money, or to have someone to use and abuse – all the accusations about how homes off the reservation are abusing kids – it makes me sick to my stomach. While I am certain there always exceptions to every rule, I don’t believe most of these stories. I have lived on two reservations and in three states, one province, and a major metropolitan Native American community. I have seen many home situations both on and off the reservation. What I have seen on the reservations has been horrific in how children are many times treated.

I have chased a drunk off a 10-yr-old girl, called the police when a 13-yr-old was being beaten, rescued children from the street and taken them home, learned in horror that a 4-yr-old niece had been left alone all night in a park filled with drunks, later learned her father was molesting her, listened on the end of the phone when someone called to ask if I had —-’s baby, because she had lost her the night before while drinking. They were hoping that somehow I had picked her up. And there is much more to tell.

What I have met within the community outside is caring, loving people who would lay down their lives for these children. I have not yet run into an abusive foster or adoptive home, although I am sure they exist to a certain extent as well. Abusive homes probably aren’t the ones most likely to contact me for help.

Bottom line is exactly what my husband and I decided long ago – and what we have been fighting for all these years. It would have to be over our dead bodies that our children be raised on the reservation. We demand the right to choose our own guardians for our children should something happen to us. And we did do that – we chose a couple who agreed to take our children if we should die.

The next step was fighting to ensure the tribal government had no right to intervene.

And now I am fighting to ensure my grandchildren are never under the jurisdiction of tribal government.

As a person of cherokee decent -not enrolled by choice and will never enroll for this very reason- I hope veronica goes home to the Capobiancos and this unconstitutional law is overturned. Or- at the very least modified and clarified so children like Veronica are not effected.

You fail to understand what ICWA stands for. Your argument suffers many fallacies such as stereotyping American Indian parent rights. If ICWA was established when my mom was 3 she wouldn’t have been through the hell she did because of white people. Adoption was a tactic used to assimilate American Indian children just like the horrendous Indian boarding schools. There are more American Indian woman advocates of ICWA compared to your few isolated stories against it. My mom’s stories is one of thousands that pushed for the passing of ICWA.
On another note BLOOD QUANTUM is not a traditional form of acknowledging tribal members. It is based upon the matrilineal descent of the mother. The Cherokee Nation is a SOVEREIGN NATION exerting their rights to determining who their people are. If American Indian woman do not like their tribe then they have EVERY RIGHT to disenroll themselves from their nation so they won’t be bound by laws such as ICWA. That is why American Indians have DUAL citizenship meaning if they do disenroll then they are not subjugated to federal rule.
If there is any problem in the system of how ICWA is run then what needs to be established are innovative ideas for these children to transition back into their community instead of using problems as an excuse to override a tribes sovereign authority.