Ruling upholds law on Indian adoption

NEW ORLEANS — A 1978 law giving preference to American Indian families in foster care and adoption proceedings involving American Indian children is constitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Friday, reversing a lower court judge in a case fraught with emotional arguments over adoptive families being “torn apart” and the urgency of protecting tribal families and cultures.

The decision from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upholds the Indian Child Welfare Act in a lawsuit involving non-Indian families who adopted or sought to adopt American Indian children.

Opponents of the law called it an unconstitutional racebased intrusion on states’ powers to govern adoptions. But the 5th Circuit majority disagreed, saying the law’s definition of an “Indian child” is a political classification.

The opinion by Judge James Dennis said the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that Congress has broad power to regulate tribes. And it said the act’s definition of Indian child is broad.

“As Defendants explain, under some tribal membership laws, eligibility extends to children without Indian blood, such as the descendants of former slaves of tribes who became members after they were freed, or the descendants of adopted white persons,” Dennis wrote. “Accordingly, a child may fall under [Indian Child Welfare Act’s] membership eligibility standard because his or her biological parent became a member of a tribe, despite not being racially Indian.”

The decision was a victory for the U.S. Justice Department, which defended the law.