Indian Adoption Process

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Recommended: A thesis on Indian Child Welfare Act

In most adoptions, the biological parents control almost every single part of the adoption process. This includes getting to choose if it will be an open or closed adoption, and even who the adoptive family will be. One of the biggest flaws in the American adoption system is the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). The Indian Child Welfare Act gives the American Indian tribes the right to take over the adoption process and place American Indian children with a family of Indians, the Indian Child Welfare act has also removed children from Non-Native homes and While race plays a significant role in the adoption process, the Indian Child Welfare Act should be revoked because many of the children affected are being taken away from their loving homes …show more content…

Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote an article titled”Put the Kids First”, and explained how much power the ICWA gives the Indian tribes, “...this has meant that if parents voluntarily put such a child up for adoption, tribal governments can block the child's placement with a non-Indian family--even if that child has never set foot on a reservation…”(Riley, Put The Kids First). It is shown that even if this child is given to the adoption program, the ICWA allows the tribes to choose where the child should live. The child might not have been raised around the Indian culture, but the tribes will still place them with people immersed in the Indian culture. That would be like putting a Catholic Pakistani with Muslim Pakistani’s. The child would have to completely change their views and practices in life. The ICWA lets tribes overlook over the whole reason of adoption and takes the best interests of the child and removes it in place of stability of the Indian culture.Timothy Sandefur and Aditya Dynar wrote about this in their article “For this 6-Year-Old, the Law Sees Only Race”, “Normally, adoption law tries to serve the best interests of the child. But the Indian Child Welfare Act forces courts to disregard that rule and place children, regardless of their individual needs, with members of Native American tribes:”(Dynar and Sandefur). What is the whole point of putting Indian children into the American foster home system and adoption system when the ICWA will interfere and let the tribes intervene? These children are being denied the right to possibly live with a non-Indian,willing and loving family

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