- [Narrator] Native American children have been removed from their families and communities for generations. - I was removed from my family. - Put in to boarding schools, adopted out. - [Narrator] Which is why in 1978, congress passed the Indian
Child Welfare Act or ICWA, a law with the stated goal
of establishing standards for the placement of Indian children in foster or adoptive homes in
order to prevent the breakup of Indian families and reverse the tide of centuries of Native displacement. - Thanks to the Indian Child Welfare Act, I have a family. - [Narrator] But according to some people, the law is also tearing some
non-Native families apart. - It's like the tribe is trying to stack the cards against us. And simply because we're
not Native American. - [Narrator] So who
should be allowed to adopt Native American children? - When the children came to live with us, we kind of say they were
hiding in the shadows. - [Narrator] This is
Joey and Anita Gullard, a married couple in Lake Park, Minnesota. In 2016, the Gullard's
became the legal guardians of four children. The children's biological
father is Joey's first cousin, their biological mother
is Native American. According to the Gullard's, the children's early
home life was tumultuous and the kids were eventually
placed in to foster care. - Our children were in
the foster care system for many years, they had five out of home placements, they were just those kids who existed and were going through
the motions through life because of all the trauma
they had been through. - They've realized when they come home there will be someone here. - That if we leave, we come back. - [Narrator] In February, 2019, the Gullard's filed a petition to legally adopt the children. - And they belong here,
this is our family. - [Narrator] But the
children also have a mother, a citizen of the White Earth
Nation in Northern Minnesota, who's been trying to
regain custody of them. HuffPost reached out and
received no response. - If ICWA didn't exist, we would of been able to
adopt the kids three years ago and we wouldn't be in court and the kids would have
a family and a house that they wouldn't have to
worry about leaving again. - [Narrator] So why does ICWA exist? - Child removal in Native
communities in the United States begins at the very beginning, long before there was an United States. - [Narrator] This is Matthew Fletcher, a law professor at
Michigan State University and a citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of
Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. - The very earliest moments
of Indian child removal in the United States accorded
during the Revolutionary War. One of the tools the US
used to fight Indian tribes was to burn villages,
burn towns, burn crops, kidnap children and their mothers, hold them for ransom and
force peace negotiations with the tribes. - [Narrator] By the beginning
of the mid 19th century, the US government, believing
that white Christian values were needed to civilize Native people, began the process of
destroying Native tribes through forced assimilation. - One of the ways you do that is to strip Indian tribes of their children, take them off the reservation
to have them learn English, learn American ways of life,
so called civilization, religious instruction. - [Narrator] Which was often
done by forcing children in to boarding schools operated and funded by the United States government, which believed removing
children from Native communities was in their best interest. - Fast forward to the Great Depression. - [Narrator] The government
had less resources and boarding schools,
which for so long had been at the forefront of Native assimilation, began shutting down. This is when the government initiated the Indian Adoption Project, a federal program that forceably removed Native children from their homes and placed with white
families for adoption. - I was removed from my
family at 18 months of age and then I was placed with a white couple when I was two. - [Narrator] This is Susan Harness, a member of the Confederated
Salish and Kootenai Tribes and a victim of the federal governments Indian Adoption Project
in the early 1960's. It took Susan decades to finally connect with her birth family. - What I told myself that I really wanted is I wanted to find the
people who look like me 'cause I was tired of
being the only brown person in the communities where I lived and not having anybody around
that knew what that felt like or even cared what that felt like. - You hear a lot of benevolent rhetoric about why the government is doing this and the idea was often conveyed that if Indian children
stayed within their families or in their communities, they even used the rhetoric
"It was like a dead end." - [Narrator] This is Margaret Jacobs, a history professor at
the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and a preeminent
scholar of Native child removal. - In child placement agencies, they were often deciding to
remove American Indian children from their families on the basis that extended family members
were taking care of them or that their mothers were
working outside the home. - [Narrator] Always under the guise of the child's best interests. And by the 1970s. - 25 to 35% of all Indian children had been separated from their families. - [Narrator] This had a devastating effect on Native communities. - If you take the children
and they never learn of their heritage, of
their tribal religions and they never get schooled
in to how to become leaders in their own nations. It's a way to slowly kill that tribe and that collective identity. - [Narrator] Which is
why against the backdrop of the social movements
of the 1960s and 70s, Native communities found their voice. - Then you have these
very radical organizations that come about in the 1960s, such as the American Indian Movement. - [Dennis] It is legally our right to have an independent nation. - Who are using more like the tactics that you might find
with the Black Panthers and the African American community, or other parts of the
Civil Rights Movement, that they're occupying the island of Alcatraz in the San
Francisco Bay, for example, they're marching on Washington. - [Narrator] It was in this context that a series of hearings
were held in congress ultimately leading to-- - The Indian Child Welfare Act. - [Narrator] A groundbreaking
law enacted with the goal of reversing the tide of
centuries of Native child removal. The result has been that ICWA
has had a remarkable impact on keeping Native families together. - Thanks to the Indian Child
Welfare Act, I have a family. - [Narrator] This is Allie Maldonado, chief judge and member of the Little Traverse Bay
Band of Ottowa Indians. Prior to the passage of ICWA, generations of Allie's
family had been torn apart. - [Allie] It impacted my mother,
it impacted my grandmother. - [Narrator] But because
of ICWA's passing, Allie was able to adopt her
son from a neighboring tribe and have a Native family of her own. - And what that's meant for my son is that not only is he
growing up in his community but he had a connection to his community that will stay with him
and be relevant to him for his entire life. - [Narrator] Matthew Fletcher's family has also benefited from
Indian Child Welfare Act. - My wife and I have two children and those boys are the first generation since the early 19th
century of my wife's family not to of had repeated
removals of Indian children. [Narrator] And yet, while
native people have been vocal on the impact ICWA is
having on their communities, the law has is opponents. - In a law suit that challenges
the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act. - [Narrator] In recent years, right wing think tanks like the Goldwater and CATO institutes have
been active in swaying federal courts to overturn ICWA on the grounds that it's
tearing white families apart from their adoptive, Native kids. Now, both sides believe
that the US Supreme Court may soon rule on the
constitutionality of ICWA. - [News Reporter] The case
involved a tribal custody battle that hinged on the-- - Indian Child Welfare Act. - [Narrator] For the first
time since it's enactment, the Indian Child Welfare
Act is in real danger of being dismantled, which could have devastating
effects for Native people. - My problem with ICWA is it says okay, because
you've got this Indian blood and the tribe deems you
to be an Indian child, that that identity just
overrides everything. - [Narrator] This is Mark Fiddler, an adoption attorney who's
been critical of ICWA. Mark is also a member of the Turtle Mountain
Band of Chippewa Indians and one of the few Native
people openly fighting to have the law overturned. - I get calls almost every day, a foster parent will say
"This child has been with me "for one, two, three years."
And now after all this time, after all the child's
been attached and bonded, a tribal social worker or
state social worker will say "Well, we have to follow ICWA." We've gotta rip this
child out of secure home and place the child for
adoption in an Indian home, solely because the child's Native American and that's what really
bothered me big time. - [Narrator] Which was how Mark ended up representing this
couple, Joey and Anita Gullard. - It's not a matter of what their race is or what color their skin
is or what color mine is, it's that we have a home
and that we love them and we're better people because
we have them in our lives. What would you feel like if someone said you weren't good enough for your children simply because of the color of your skin? - [Narrator] Which is exactly
what the US government has been telling Native
people for centuries. And while the Gullard's
might think otherwise. - The whole goal of the
Indian Child Welfare Act is exactly the same as
the goal of every state child welfare law which is
the reunification of families. - [Narrator] After years of
adoption being weaponized against Native people, ICWA simply requires states to prioritize placing native kids with their
native family or community. - No child is placed with an Indian family or on their reservation
without the best interests and determination by the state court. The history of Indian
people and Indian tribes in the United States is truly unique. Tribes are governments, tribes are listed in the
constitution as sovereigns along side foreign nations and states but it is an acknowledgement
in the constitution that there are these people called Indians and that they have a separate legal status than everybody else in the United States. - We didn't choose to be American Indian, it's not like we chose to be
this separate racial group and entitled to these things. We were made to be separate, we were made to live separately, we were made to agree to certain things in order to even continue to exist. - These kids, they're dual citizens, they're citizens of the
states they live in, they're citizens of America
but they're also citizens of sovereign nations and
the culture and the history and the connection to those communities helped define those children, helped them figure out
their place in the world and tell them who they are.
