Brackeen v. Haaland Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

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Brackeen v. Haaland, 994 F.3d 249 (2021)

The Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, is a federal law that governs the removal, foster-care placement, and adoption process of Indian children. In Brackeen versus Haaland, we’ll look at whether ICWA’s definition of Indian child violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.

There is a unique legal relationship between Indian tribes and the United States government. Although tribes are located within the United States, a sovereign nation, the tribes are also sovereign political entities. Despite the tribes’ status as sovereign political entities, the United States Supreme Court has recognized that tribal sovereignty is limited, and Congress has broad power to regulate Indians.

Under Congress’s authority to regulate Indians, Congress passed ICWA in 1978 to address the high rate of Indian children who were removed from their homes and placed with non-Indian families. Under ICWA, an Indian child is defined as a person under 18 years old who is either a member of a tribe or who is eligible for tribal membership and the biological child of a tribe member. Congress enacted ICWA to keep Indian children in Indian families. To further this goal, the act first prioritizes the placement of an Indian child with his or her extended family. If the child can’t be placed with his or her family, then the child will be placed with a family within the child’s tribe. If that is not possible, the child will be placed with an Indian family outside of the child’s tribe.

In 2017, Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana, as well as non-Indian couples who wanted to adopt or foster Indian children, including Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, sued the United States, later represented by Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland. The plaintiffs claimed that ICWA was unconstitutional. Among other claims, the plaintiffs argued that ICWA’s definition of an Indian child was an impermissible race-based classification that violated the Equal Protection Clause. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, holding that ICWA was unconstitutional. The United States appealed. A three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s holding. The Fifth Circuit then reconsidered the case en banc.

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