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Monday, September 22, 2008

What is ICWA?

ICWA is the acronym for Indian Child Welfare Act. This is a federal law that is meant to protect Indian children from being farmed out to white families, and therefore depleting the tribal community. In the law it states that a child must be 1/4 blood quantum, meaning they must have at least 1/4 Indian blood in order for this law to apply to them. If the law does apply to them the tribe has the final say as to where the child belongs, and if they want it to stay within the tribe then that is their decision. This is the law they are trying to apply to Talon. Our argument, and the only reason we didn't loose him right away, is because he is only 3/16 blood quantum, which is 1/16 short of 1/4. Therefore, the law should not apply to him. The tribe is trying to enforce a "resolution" that they have that says that the tribe has final say as to whether or not the law applies whether they are 1/4 or not. We are arguing that the resolution goes against their constitution and should therefore be ineffective.

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