Judge Alito will be so pleased

[Lamplighter]

It took a day or so, but Indian tribal leaders are now responding to this "one-off" decision of Alito et al.

USA Today
Peter Harriman
6/25/13
Ruling on adopted Indian kids threatens tribes, some say
Leaders worry that the Supreme Court ruling opens the door to what was happening before Indian Child Welfare Act.

A Supreme Court decision that undercuts the presumptive rights
of biological Native American parents could threaten an entire slate of legislation
passed almost 40 years ago to strengthen tribal sovereignty, according
to a former South Dakota senator.

The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act is intended to keep Indian children
from being taken from their homes and placed with non-Indian adoptive or foster parents.
The law's intent is to preserve familial bonds between Indian parents
and their children and tribes and their children.<snip>

"It's an attack on tribal sovereignty through the children.
I can't believe they did this," retired Sen. James Abourezk, D-S.D.,
who was the driving force behind the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act
and the other bills, said Tuesday of the court's decision.

Clyde Bellecourt, an American Indian Movement activist who was a key player in the effort
to develop and strengthen the principle of tribal sovereignty in the 1970s, agreed with Abourezk.
He said the Supreme Court ruling

Because of widespread adoptions of tribal children by non-Indians before the law,
Bellecourt said, "there are thousands of people wandering the earth who have no idea
from whence they came even though they have a culture and a traditional way of life of their own."

My understanding of this, despite current wordings in some media,
is that the father proposed marriage when the mother learned she was pregnant.
When she said no to marriage, he then refused financial support of the child
and agreed to give full custody to the mother.

Later, the mother decided to put the child up for adoption.
The father and the tribe have a legal right to notification of such adoption proceedures.

It was not until afterward that the father learned of the adoption through informal tribal contacts.
It was at that time he gained custody through legal channels.
The non-Indian "adoptive" parents then appealed the case to the USSC.

The father has always maintained that he did give up "custody" before the baby was born,
but did not give up his "parental rights" or his legal Indian rights under ICWA.
The Supreme Court of South Carolina agreed with him, and he was given physical custody of his daughter.

Sam's opinion and the USSC majority have now made her parental custody unnecessarily tenuous.