Maine signs on to Indian child welfare lawsuit before US Supreme Court
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) – Maine is joining several other states in defending a federal law that deals with Indian adoption rights and will be a central topic in a case that goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next month, Attorney General Janet Mills announced Thursday.
Mills said the state signed onto an amicus brief in the case defending the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. She described the facts of the case as “particularly outrageous,” and said the case has implications in Maine where a process is under way to investigate systematic removal of tribal children from their households prior to passage of the Indian Child Welfare law.
The case involves a child born in Oklahoma to a father who is a Cherokee Nation member and non-tribal mother. The mother put up the child for adoption and a non-Indian family in South Carolina adopted her. Mills said the father was a member of the military and was notified of the planned adoption only four days before his scheduled deployment to Iraq.
In a case challenging to the adoption, the South Carolina Supreme Court ultimately ruled that it violated the Indian Child Welfare Act, which gives a parent of a tribal member strong preference for custody. The child was ordered back to Oklahoma to be with her biological father.
“The thing about this that makes it so different from a lot of other child welfare laws is that it gives preference to a third-party entity, the tribe itself. (The tribe) has special standing in these cases to assert its cultural identity,” Mills said during a news briefing also attended by tribal representatives to the Maine Legislature.
The state has adhered to the policy of having Indian children placed with tribal families whenever possible, said Mills, reversal of a policy of assimilation of tribal members into the white culture, which results in the deterioration of the tribes’ own cultures.
Rep. Henry John Bear, who represents the Houlton Band of Maliseets in the House, said he was placed as a child in four different foster homes of white families. While Bear said he was well-treated, he was not taught the traditions and lore of his native people.
A Maine Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been created to investigate systematic removal of tribal children from their households prior to the 1978 passage of Indian Child Welfare law. In June, Gov. Paul LePage and chiefs of the five Wabanaki tribes in Maine signed an agreement launching the truth and reconciliation process.
LePage said at the time that the commission is “a critical step to improve relations between the state and the tribes.”