Choctaws fight for authority over adoptions

A challenge to a decades-old federal law meant to keep Native American children and families together is before the US Supreme Court, and it has the potential to affect tribes across the country, including those in Mississippi.

The Indian Child Welfare Act governs custody of indigenous children. If a child is removed from its parents, the law establishes preferences for placing the child with another family member, another member of a tribe, or a different tribe.

Brackeen v. Holland Before the Supreme Court challenging these preferences. Three pairs of non-Native adoptive parents, three states are suing the federal government, and five tribes, arguing that the law discriminates against non-Native people based on race.

Tribes, including the Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians, are watching the case and seeing that more is at stake than adoption.

“As the only federally recognized tribe in Mississippi, our 11,000-plus members are descendants of those members who chose to remain here in Mississippi to preserve our cultural heritage in our ancestral homelands,” the tribe said in a statement. “Today, as in the past, the preservation and security of our tribe, our children, and our tribal families are of paramount importance.”

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in November and is expected to issue its ruling next year.

ICWA was created in response to the mistreatment of generations of Native Americans by the government,…