I.C.W.A Decision

The Brown family reached six members, two parents, and four children thanks to the Indian Child Welfare Act (I.C.W.A.).

"We are tribal members of the Choctaw nation. I'm a tribal member. And we went through Indian Child Welfare to go through the process of fostering to adopt, and that's how we started,” says Kris Brown.

Kris and Sherri Brown found out after their first child was born, they could no longer have children. They weren't done growing their family despite that.

"We were at the point where we weren't gonna be able to have any more biological children, and we knew we had been involved in education as our careers, and we had both been involved as youth pastors in churches. And so, our faith is very important to us, and we wanted to be able to grow our family and this was gonna be the best option for us," says Kris Brown.

Their first adoption was Seth.

It took about three and a half years to complete the adoption process, but when the opportunity came to adopt sisters Adelyn and Emeyln the process took less time.

"They had been in the foster care system and had been in and out of homes. And then when they were placed in our care, the process was less than a year. Six months. Yeah,” says Kris Brown.

Adelyn and her sister Emelyn were already living with a foster mom when the Brown family came into the picture.

"And she told us that we were gonna go to a new home and so we were kind of like unsure. We were kind of scared because we had just gotten used to her and then we were leaving again, so we were just like, so then we went to go meet them and we were like, okay. And then finally we went to go live with them and yeah, before you knew it, we were getting adopted,” says Adelyn.

This family of six is glad that the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the I.C.W.A. which had been in place for more than 40 years.

Justice Neal Gorsuch noted in his concurrent opinion in the Haaland versus Brackeen case that the tribes have the right to help their own children saying, "By now, the full picture has come into view and it is easy to see why I.C.W.A. must stand. Under our constitution, tribes remain independent sovereigns responsible for gov­erning their own affairs. And as this court has long recog­nized, domestic law arrangements fall within tribes' tradi­tional powers of self-governance."

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas believes a child's Indian identity shouldn't factor into foster care and adoptions saying, "Con­gress ignored the normal limits on the federal govern­ment's power and prescribed rules to regulate state child custody proceedings in one circumstance: when the child in­volved happens to be an Indian. As the majority acknowl­edges, I.C.W.A. often overrides state family law by dictating that state courts place Indian children with Indian caretak­ers even if doing so is not in the child's best interest. It imposes heightened standards before remov­ing Indian children from unsafe environments. And it allows tribes to unilaterally enroll Indian chil­dren and then intervene in their custody proceedings."

Gina South is the Juvenile Division Chief for the Choctaw Nation's Tribal Prosecutor Office and says I.C.W.A. is not a racial issue, it’s a sovereignty issue.

"It's important to note that being a person who is a native person and being a member of a tribe or a citizen of a tribe is a political classification. It's not a racial classification. When you're a member of a tribe, then that is a political organization that you're a group of, and you happen to be born into that group,” says South.

She believes getting a Native child into a Native home lead to a greater success rate for those children who come from unstable home.

"It's not that we're trying to exclude somebody, we're trying to do what's best to help that specific child succeed with their own personal identity, and they grow up and they can be a whole complete adult knowing their heritage and understanding where they came from,” says South.

"These kids are in the most unstable time of their lives. So, providing any form of stability, culture, similar heritage, that weighs a lot,” says Joe Dorman, CEO of Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.

Dorman supports the I.C.W.A. decision and says from what he's seen DHS and the tribes are working toward the benefit of children.

“You've seen great improvement with the relations between the state with human services and each of the individual I.C.W.A. offices with the tribes here in Oklahoma. Those Sovereign Nations have been working well with state leaders,” says Dorman.

"Hálito, my name is Adelyn,” says Adelyn.

Since being adopted by Kris and Sherri Brown, Adelyn has even become a Choctaw princess.

“See I didn't want to, 'cause I didn't know what it was, but the whole time she was like, I’m gonna make you run for it. And I was like, no, because I was too scared and I knew that they were gonna have to speak like the Choctaw language. They were gonna have to know all of this. And I was like, I don't know any of that,” says Adelyn.

"We want them to know everything about their traditions, their culture, their faith. We just want to give them every opportunity to learn as much as they can so that they can pass that on to their kids someday because we know it's very important,” says Sherri Brown.

As of May this year, the Choctaw Nation says it had more than 406 children who are in state custody. With 52 Choctaw foster families, they're looking for more tribal members that are willing to open their homes.