The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) gives tribal governments exceptional power over the fate of children who are “eligible” for tribal membership and have a member as a parent, whether or not they are themselves tribal members. Although the law was originally intended to prevent the breakup of intact Native American families at the hands of state officials, ICWA now operates to make it harder for non-Native adults to adopt such children even in circumstances in which approval would otherwise be routine, while sometimes forcing child welfare officials to place abused and neglected children in households in which they are at serious risk of further harm.

Although tribes are legally permitted to use genetic criteria as qualifications for membership, the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause forbids the federal government from discriminating on the basis of race or lineage. Yet ICWA explicitly imposes race-based restrictions on foster care and adoption. If Native children cannot be placed with relatives or members of the same tribe, it directs that placement be sought with “other Indian families” or in “Indian” institutions, regardless of tribe. It thus enforces a further racial classification that is both unusual and suspect, that of the “generic Indian,” one that disregards significant differences between tribes as well as the interests of individual children.

While engaging in this improper racial classification, ICWA also removes Native children from the benefit of protections deemed important through much of existing law. For example, many states employ a “best interests of the child” standard, but the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and several state courts have declared that ICWA overrides it. But Congress does not have the constitutional authority to dictate what is in the best interests of the children in a single racial class, let alone to do so in a way that itself promotes racialized outcomes.

In addition, subjecting American citizens living far from Indian country — both children and adoptive parents — to tribal courts, absent some indicia of consent to be thus governed, imperils their rights to due process and disregards the longstanding “minimum contacts” rule that forbids judges from reaching across borders to impose binding judgments on parties that have no real contact with their jurisdiction.

Together with the Goldwater Institute and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Cato has filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit on behalf of parent plaintiffs frustrated in a wish to adopt children of Native descent. We argue that the government may not treat American citizens differently based on whether their lineage would qualify them for tribal membership. Put simply, Native families are entitled to the same legal protections as families of all other races and lineages. For Congress to impose a racialized and non-neutral regime on parents and children is not only unwise and unfair, but unconstitutional.