NEW ORLEANS, La. – A case that challenges Tribal rights to protect their Wakanyeja, their sacred children, was heard before 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 13.
Plaintiffs in case, Brackeen v. Bernhardt, argue that the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act is unconstitutional because it’s a race-based law and violates the equal protection clause.
According to defendants in the case, “The argument goes against decades of precedent in which the government-to-government relationship between tribes and the United States is classified as political — not racial.”
Last October the same federal Judge, the Honorable Judge Reed O’Connor, who issued a ruling to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, also heard the ICWA case and issued a 55-page decision striking down the law.
Chairman Tehassi Hill of the Oneida Nation said…..
https://www.nativesunnews.today/articles/protecting-our-wakanyeja/
