BRIEF OF CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE FOR INDIAN
CHILD WELFARE AND ICWA CHILDREN AND
FAMILIES AS AMICI CURIAE SUPPORTING
PETITIONERS
Read the entire brief here:
SCOTUS 21-378 21-380 Amici Curie Brief
BRIEF OF CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE FOR INDIAN
CHILD WELFARE AND ICWA CHILDREN AND
FAMILIES AS AMICI CURIAE SUPPORTING
PETITIONERS
Read the entire brief here:
SCOTUS 21-378 21-380 Amici Curie Brief
CANCELED DUE TO VIRUS
Some of the wording of this notice has been amended from the Commission’s official version to better communicate to CAICW’s audience.
The Commission is in the process of hiring a vendor to create a website, which will be accepting written testimony.
The Commission is also developing a process to efficiently process and analyze all written testimony.
COMMISSION MEDIA RELEASE….
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The 11-member Alyce Spotted Bear and Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children (Commission) was established by Congress to conduct a comprehensive study of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and to develop recommendations, goals, and plans for achieving goals, for federal policy relating to these children, as well as modifications necessary to improve programs that serve children of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian heritage at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels. The Commission is tasked with issuing a report focusing recommendations on solutions to issues that would improve the health, safety, and well-being of the children, including: child welfare; physical, mental, and behavioral health; educational and vocational opportunities; school district policies and practices; access to cultural and extracurricular activities; juvenile justice; early education and development; wraparound services for Native children through increased coordination; flexible use of existing federal programs; improved data collection methods; and models of successful federal, state, local and tribal programs. The Commission’s goal is to develop a sustainable system that assists parents in meeting the needs of their children.
Written testimony will also be accepted throughout the 2 year period of data collection.
The Commission will be holding hearings in and reviewing documentation from tribal communities throughout the country to hear from affected children, their families, their community members, and tribal leaders. The Commission will also hear from researchers and experts as they consider their recommendations. The first hearing will be March 13-14, 2020 at the Talking Stick Resort in Scottsdale, AZ. Members of the public are invited to provide testimony on the afternoon of March 13th, and are invited to hear from panels of invited witnesses on March 14th. Interested parties will be given an opportunity to be heard on topics related to the health, education, and well-being of Native children.
Where: Talking Stick Resort, 9800 Talking Stick Way, Scottsdale, AZ 85256
When: Open public hearing: 12 – 5:45 pm on Friday, March 13th (includes lunch from 12-1 pm)
Panels of invited witnesses (open to public): 9 am – 6 pm on Saturday, March 14th
Individuals who wish to provide testimony at the public hearing should email asbwsnc@gmail.com. There will also be an opportunity to sign up to provide testimony on site. Individuals will be allowed to provide testimony for up to 5 minutes.
Any person with a disability who desires reasonable accommodation to attend this meeting may contact asbwsnc@gmail.com.
The Commissioners of the Alyce Spotted Bear and Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children are:
Gloria O’Neill (Chair), President/CEO, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc., AK
Tami DeCoteau, Ph.D. (Vice-Chair), DeCoteau Trauma-Informed Care & Practice, PLLC, ND
Carlyle Begay, Former State Senator, AZ
Dolores Subia BigFoot, Ph.D., Director, Indian Country Child Trauma Center, OK
Jesse Delmar, Director, Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety, AZ
Anita Fineday, Managing Director, Indian Child Welfare Program, Casey Family Programs, MN
Don Atqaqsaq Gray, Board Member, Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation, AK
Leander R. McDonald, Ph. D., President, United Tribes Technical College, ND
Elizabeth (Lisa) Morris, Administrator, Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, ND
Melody Staebner, Fargo/West Fargo Indian Education Coordinator, ND
The U.S. District Court, Western District of Michigan (Southern Division), has issued a TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER against the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians as well as a Leelanau County Family Court Judge. This order prevents them from removing three children from their Legal Guardians pending the next hearing in three weeks.
The children have been in their current home for five years, and were under imminent threat of removal. At the next hearing, scheduled for three weeks from now, the court will decide whether to grant or deny the plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction.
The plaintiffs are challenging the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Michigan Indian Family Preservation Act (MIFPA), Michigan’s state corollary and complement to the federal Indian Child Welfare Act.
The TRO – the first time we know of that a federal court has restrained a tribal government and state court over concerns of ICWA abuse – was issued, September 29, 2015, at 5:05 PM.
Please pray for the best interest of these children – and all children across the nation who are in a similar situation.
Please also pray for continued wisdom and blessings for the attorneys involved in protecting these children.
This audio is of Spirit Lake Tribal member/BIA Police Officer ‘Bundy’ talking to BIA Social Services Supervisor Bill McKie about abuse of his children. In the audio Bundy talks about getting the run-around. McKie berates Bundy for pursuing the child abuse – tells him he is running around going “yap-yap-yap” and is obsessed with the issue. This happened about 3 weeks before Bundy died. Aug. 30, 2014, Fort Totten, North Dakota – Spirit Lake Reservation.
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Three weeks ago while I was walking, I found these beautiful Flowers growing out of a crack in the cement sidewalk. Today, listening to Mr. Mckie’s attempt to shame and intimidate Bundy, these flowers seemed appropriate. RIP Lavern ‘Bundy’ Littlewind. God Bless you.
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Can’t view this video? Try this link:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGEw7jq9hig&feature=youtu.be
A few people have asked what they can do to stand up for Bundy and continue what he started.
1. Bundy wanted these documents to be seen. He wanted to prove that Social services is not doing its job and needs an honest, genuine shake-up and change, not just fluffy talk and pretend. So – Please share his stuff so that the Media and Congressman in New York and DC can’t ignore it as they have been. Especially share this last audio, the longest one. It really shows the attitude of tribal social services and the BIA.
2. Senator Hoeven and Rep. Cramer were given this material and the week prior to Bundy’s passing and have had time to look at it. Now we need to know now what they are going to do to push for genuine change in tribal social services. We don’t want more fluff talk and posturing from DC, the BIA, Casey family services or the ACF. We want the people of Spirit Lake to finally get some honest respect and real action. So please call their offices and ask them what is going to be done to change tribal social services. Be persistent. Don’t allow anyone to snow you with nice words that are only meant to pacify.
Senator Hoeven: 202-224-2551
Rep. Cramer: 202-225-2611
Rep. Cramer was very good to call the BIA on the carpet in June. His office actually asked Bundy to testify at the Oversight Hearing that month, but Bundy was nervous about the custody battle and thought the tribal government might use his kids against him if he did that. That was very understandable – as many of us have seen that kind of thing happen.
We are very grateful for Rep. Cramer’s for what he did in June. He has been a hero doing things others have been too afraid to. But we can’t let our politician’s rest on their laurels. We want to know what Rep. Cramer’s next step is.
(It doesn’t do much good to call Senator Heitkamp’s office. She has not yet been willing to take genuine, immediate action to change things for the better.)
Bundy’s 10 page affidavit –
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The image with this audio is Bundy’s final affidavit to the tribal court on 8/26/2014. You an read it better at https://caicw.org/2014/09/26/bundys-additional-statement-august-2014/#.VCikHxamSSo
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Can’t view this video? Try this link:
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If you are having trouble viewing the video, try this link…
We are not witnesses to the events that transpired in this family. We don’t know what went on. But what is clear in this and other audios is that the system set up to protect children at Spirit Lake, as well as at many other reservations, isn’t working.
Do you want to know why abuse continues at Spirit Lake despite everything that has happened to children there, and despite the BIA supposedly overseeing everything now?
It is because our federal government has set up a system that supports and even encourages it.
The Social worker in this audio doesn’t appear to be overly concerned with investigating the allegations from either parent. What she appears to be saying is that if any more 960’s are filed by either parent, the children will be placed in foster care. The criteria she indicates for removing the kids doesn’t appear to be on the merits of one of the currently filed 960’s, or even the merits of whatever a new 960 would be. It would simply be because one more 960 had been filed, making life more difficult for social services.
So – if a parent like Bundy had a genuine issue to be concerned about – they are now in fear of saying so.
We are all very concerned that if what Bundy is saying is true and he is no longer here to protect his kids, the system won’t help them and they could be placed in danger. But even Bundy said the point of publishing the audios goes beyond that. After all, he had no idea when he sent this material that within a few days, he would be gone. He did not know his kids would be at risk within the week. What he did know is that everything is messed up and needs to change.
This is about a good man – Bundy and his courage and passion to try to do something about what he was seeing. It is about his kids and the love he had for them along with his desire that they be safe.
It is also about the apathy and ineffective attitude within the BIA, ACF, Spirit Lake Social Services – and tribal social services on several other reservations. It is about a nation-wide system that routinely looks the other way because it is easier to do that than deal with the rampant abuse and neglect endemic on many reservations.
What has to be understood is:
1. The mother isn’t alone. If Social Services were to take action on some of the things this mother was doing, they would need to take similar action against many other parents. That would be exhausting considering the size of the problem.
2. Some parents don’t think they are doing anything wrong because so many others are doing the same thing – or worse. So some parents and their relatives are sincere when they say the believe a person is a “good” mother, despite certain behavior.
3. Some of the behavior is so common, kids are growing up thinking it is normal on the rez. Even some social workers behave in similar manner with their own children, so they certainly aren’t going to call other parents on the carpet for it. Bundy himself fell into some of that. He didn’t use seat belts the night of the accident. It’s not uncommon on the Rez for people not to use seat belts. Many of those who are criticizing him for it don’t use seat belts either. It is simply one of the things that is so common it is accepted.
4. Some within tribal leadership, supporters of the status quo, and even federal government claim that tribal members have different standards than “European” families and shouldn’t be held to the same familial standards as “white” people. There are some aspects of life where that is true. But not when it comes to abuse or neglect. The kind of behavior Bundy is talking about has been rationalized and determined to be acceptable by too many people on many reservations. Deep down, we all know abuse and neglect is NEVER okay, no matter who is doing it or what the person’s heritage is. When you hear the argument that tribal members can’t be held to “European” standards, realize that some use this as an excuse for abuse that allows it to continue.
5. Realize that many tribal members, just like Bundy, know abuse and neglect when they see it and want it stopped – but are powerless in the face of tribal corruption and the rhetoric of people in orgs like NARF, NICWA and the Casey Foundation. These orgs have spun a yarn and the federal government has bought it. Bundy, Roland Morris, Sr. and many others with no power have attempted to speak and tell the truth, but have been ignored.
6. It is claimed by supporters of the current system that tribal members are allowed a “higher standard” of proof before they can be accused of neglect or abuse. Talk about turning something on it’s head. What are they talking about when they say a “higher” standard? According to our federal government, children of Native American heritage need to be neglected and abused far more than children of any other heritage before they can be protected. That is clearly a LOWER standard.
7. The Indian Child Welfare Act is being protected at all costs – even the cost of children’s lives. Talk about an ironic turn-around. But that is what happens when you put a price on people’s heads; each tribal member amounts to additional federal funding for tribal governments. Think about this: If the BIA and tribal social services were to pursue and investigate every instance of abuse and neglect that they hear about, it would:
a) cost a lot of money.
b) involve finding foster care outside of the reservation, because there are already too few foster homes on the reservation.
c) threaten the credibility of the rhetoric that has been spun.
So instead, neglect and abuse is ignored, the number of incidents is hidden or played down, rhetoric is expounded, and tribal governments, tribal leaders and their cronies continue to receive their money and power.
And kids continue to suffer – and some even die.
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Passing the buck:
The judge had said for him in the last audio to go to tribal social services to get the recommendation for supervised visits, while this social worker is telling him he needs to ask the court for what he needs and bring evidence.
He has already said that he gave both the judge and the social services many pictures and documents.
If you have trouble viewing this audio/video, try this link…
August 22, 2014 – Meeting with BIA Social Services Supervisor Fernanda Shay
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He died in a car wreck on Monday, Sept. 22, 2014. Just five hours earlier, he was talking to us on the phone, telling us the audios he had sent us a few days earlier were recorded during his meetings with social services and tribal court. He wanted his story to be public. He wanted others to know why child abuse thrives on the reservation.
He was a tribal member and BIA policeman at Spirit Lake. He had lived there all his life. He said he was raised to be a warrior – protecting women, elders and children… He said he can’t imagine doing anything else. He said, “That’s what warriors do.”
But too often, the tribal gov’t wants him to sweep abuse under the rug… He said lots of stuff on the Rez gets swept under the rug – because it was easier than investigating and dealing with it. He said too many on the Rez aren’t protecting the children – and many are upset with him because he keeps telling the truth and pushing for what it right, while many others just want to leave things as they are. Social services treated him like he was a pest.
Bundy was his nick-name. He was trying to protect his own children. He was bringing hospital reports and other evidence of his ex-wife’s abuse to social services to get them to DO something and protect his kids, ages 3 and 5. He had even taken drug paraphernalia out of his daughter’s mouth once after she had returned from visiting her mother. He turned it over to the crime lab, and has been waiting for three months to get the results back.
All he wanted was supervised visits. He made arrangements with SAAFE – a place near her house where she could easily visit with the kids. But tribal court wouldn’t make the order – and social services wouldn’t make the recommendation.
He sent us audio tapes between himself and a couple Spirit Lake, BIA social workers. The man in the audio, who is currently the superintendent for social services there, was telling him he looks like a fool for running around “yap-yap-yapping” all the time about his kids. “He said, “You seem obsessed. What is it that is REALLY bothering you. Is it because she left you?” He told Bundy, “I’m telling you this for your own good. Stop doing this.” “You have a ‘responsible position.’ You should think about what you are saying.”
Yes – he said that to him. We have the audio tape here on my computer.
The man who said that is currently the superintendent of Spirit Lake Social Services. We have his name – Bill McKie – his voice – and his effort to intimidate and shame Bundy.
But we don’t have Bundy. Most importantly, his children don’t have Bundy anymore.
The children were also in the car and are currently in the hospital.
God be with those children. We ask this in the Holy Name of Jesus.
Bundy wanted us to spread the documents. He had been asked to testify at the oversight hearing in June, but he was still too afraid at that time. Not for himself, he said, but because he was fighting for his kids and was afraid what would happen to them if he went against the tribe. But yesterday, he told us he had had enough. He was ready to talk to the world. He told me I could arrange a radio interview with one of the hosts we have gone on several times. He told me that just five hours before he died.
Bundy had sent the documentation to Senator Hoeven’s office last week. It was sent to Rep. Cramer’s office as well.
The pen – which Bundy brought to the Bismarck crime lab – is hard evidence. The hospital reports are hard evidence. The bruises, lice and scabies were hard evidence. The testimony of the dispatcher was hard evidence.
Yet, tribal Social services chose to ignore hard evidence and deride Bundy for attempting to protect his kids. That’s the whole point.
The BIA was called in two years ago to oversee, improve care, and protect the kids. Casey Family Services and the ACF were supposed to be overseeing, improving care and protecting the kids.
Tribal social services doesn’t protect kids, they protect neglectful parents. That is why we continue to see this cycle go on and on and on.
That’s why we need to honor Bundy’s request and publish his tapes.
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The following is a timeline we put together based on the documents he had sent us. We were able to ask him a couple questions pertaining to the timeline during our hour long talk the afternoon of Monday, Sept. 22nd. We didn’t get a chance to finish the questions.
Italicized events are from Bundy’s statements. Events with bold dates are backed by documentation he had given us.
We will be posting the Documents and linking them to this time line as we go through and finish redacting from the documents.
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(February 2, 2014 – Kids were dropped off by mom at Spirit Lake police dept. after a visitation. Daughter was chewing on hollowed-out pen. Bundy noticed the pen at a gas station on their way home. He told her not to chew on that kind of thing and took it from her. She said, “Give me back that pen. It’s mine. My mom gave me that.” Holding the hollow pen up to the light, white powder could be seen in it. Pen was brought to the Spirit Lake police dept., Criminal Investigator. Pen was put into evidence. 960 was never completed. Pen was left in desk drawer for months. 960 on the pen was never given to BIA In July, Bundy retrieved the pen and took it to Bismarck crime lab on his own. He has not yet gotten the results back. )
(February, 2014 – Kids treated by hospital for scabies after returning from visit with mother.)
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April, 2014 – AUDIO TAPED – Brief confirmation from Patty Twohearts, tribal court Secretary
– Bundy was told that the kids would stay with him until SS does an investigation.
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(June 3, 2014, custody/visitation court hearing)
(June 20, 2014, court order resuming visitation for mother)
(June 26, 2014, Mother took daughter to ER, alleging Bundy’s older child from a different relationship hit the daughter in the groin with a baseball bat. ER report states daughter had a UTI.)
(June 27, 2014, BIA Social Services Daryl Lebeaux told Bundy that the children will remain with the mother until the investigation is completed.)
(June 30, 2014, BIA Social Services Mark Fryer told Bundy he will look into it and find out why the children are remaining with the mother until the investigation is completed.)
(July 2, 2014, BIA Social Services Mark Fryer told Bundy he believes the case was closed as evidence was unfounded. will look into it and find out why the children are remaining with the mother until the investigation is completed. It appears the investigation was on Bundy, not on the mother. Bundy asked that the children be returned to him by July 6, 2014)
(July 8, 2014, Bundy got hold of Special agent Jerard Hoegar as he was told this was the person who needed to close the case. Hoeger stated it was closed on June 26 – the day at the ER – after an interview with the daughter – evidence was unfounded. He stated that BIA social services knew this and the children should have been returned to Bundy on the 29th as there was no documentation for the mother to keep the children. will look into it and find out why the children are remaining with the mother until the investigation is completed. It appears the investigation was on Bundy, not on the mother. Bundy asked that the children be returned to him by July 6, 2014)
(July 9, 2014, children were returned to Bundy. Daughter needed treatment for lice)
(July 10, 2014, met with BIA Social Worker Jesse Hunt concerning lice, bruises, and reports by children of physical abuse and gun under seat of truck. Bundy gave her full documentation, pictures, reports. Hunt took notes of what was said.)
(July 10, 2014, Bundy took children to Mercy where bruises were documented. Discharge report was given to BIA social services and tribal court.)
(July 11, 2014 – Mother called police dispatcher to say she won’t be picking up the kids that weekend.)
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July 11, 2014 – Document – 10 page statement by Bundy to the Spirit Lake Tribal court
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(July 29 court hearing?)
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July 15 or 16 – AUDIO TAPED – Judge Billy Dean Cavanaugh
– The judge says the court never got Bundy’s documents, med reports, 960’s. They need social services to send the documents.
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August 22, 2014 – AUDIO TAPED – Meeting with BIA Social Services Supervisor Fernanda Shay
– said documents are missing. Said visits have to continue. Shay tells Bundy to talk to the judge about the abuse and take strong evidence. Bundy needs to get the judge to order supervised visits if that is what he wants.
She also said Bundy has filed too many 960’s – and BIA Social Services will take the kids away if he and the mother keep filing 960’s. Shay seemed unwilling to actually investigate the situation and find out what is really going on. She seemed to just want the reports to stop.
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August 26, 2014 – Document – Additional Statement by Bundy to the court concerning BIA’s claim that his file – with its documentation – is missing. Abuse continues.
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This below, I was unsure about dates and he didn’t get a chance to clarify….
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August 29, 2014 – AUDIO TAPED – Meeting 1 with BIA Social Services Superintendent Bill McKie
– Said social services has to petition for supervised visits –Bundy can’t simply ask the court on his own for them.
Bundy responds that mother was told June 3rd that if there is more abuse, visits will be supervised.
McKie says Bundy has to give the mother her visits. He says there is no substantiation. McKie says, “Keep in mind we need “factual evidence” – physical, concrete evidence.”
McKie: “The court only made a recommendation. SW has to petition for supervised visits. And they won’t do it without physical proof.” The SW does not appear willing to investigate the allegations.
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August 29 – AUDIO TAPED – Judge Billy Dean Cavanaugh
Can’t find the judge or Patti the clerk – then judge comes in. He says he can’t get answers from Social services either. Judge says to get social services to recommend supervised visits and he will sign it.
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If anyone STILL has questions as to why abuse continues at Spirit Lake and other reservations, they only need to listen to this audio….
August 30 – AUDIO TAPED – Meeting 2 – BIA Social Services Bill McKie
– Bundy told him that the court wants recommendations for supervised visits from social services and they will change the court order.
McKie doesn’t appear willing – and seems to be accusing Bundy of having ulterior motive.
McKie appears to totally justify their lack of concern on the basis that Bundy has complained too much.
Finally says they will write a recommendation on Monday.
McKie appears to turns things around to blame the Dad. Also seems to attempt to threaten and intimidate, by telling Bundy he looks foolish and vindictive in his constant complaints – and that he has a “responsible position” and should think more about that before continuing with his complaints.
McKie also tells Bundy he is “obsessed” with the issue (protecting his own kids?) Tells him to take a different approach.
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CALL TO ACTION
A few people have asked what they can do to stand up for Bundy and continue what he started.
1. Bundy wanted these documents to be seen. He wanted to prove that Social services is not doing its job and needs an honest, genuine shake-up and change, not just fluffy talk and pretend. So – Please share his stuff so that the Media and Congressman in New York and DC can’t ignore it as they have been. Especially share this last audio, the longest one. It really shows the attitude of tribal social services and the BIA.
2. Senator Hoeven and Rep. Cramer were given this material the week prior to Bundy’s passing and have had time to look at it. Now we need to know now what they are going to do to push for genuine change in tribal social services. We don’t want more fluff talk and posturing from DC, the BIA, Casey family services or the ACF. We want the people of Spirit Lake to finally get some honest respect and real action.
So please call their offices and ask them what is going to be done to change tribal social services. Be persistent. Don’t allow anyone to snow you with nice words that are only meant to pacify.
Senator Hoeven: 202-224-2551
Rep. Cramer: 202-225-2611
Rep. Cramer was very good to call the BIA on the carpet in June. His office actually asked Bundy to testify at the hearing that month, but Bundy was nervous about the Custody battle and thought the tribal government might use his kids against him if he did that. That was very understandable – as many of us have seen that kind of thing happen.
We are very grateful to Rep. Cramer’s for what he did in June. He has been a hero doing things others have been too afraid to. But we can’t let our politician’s rest on their laurels. We want to know what Rep. Cramer’s next step is.
Chairman Don Young, Congressman Kevin Cramer, and other distinguished committee members, I want to thank you for this opportunity to address child protection and the justice system on the Spirit Lake Reservation.
My name is Elizabeth Sharon Morris. I am the widow of Roland John Morris, a U.S. citizen of 100% Minnesota Chippewa heritage who was born and raised on the Leech Lake Reservation, speaking only Ojibwe until he started kindergarten. I am the birth mother, grandmother, foster and adoptive mother to several enrolled or eligible members, and an aunt and sister-in-law to dozens. I was an accepted ICWA home for seventeen years.
I am also the Chairwoman of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare, a national non-profit founded by my husband and myself in 2004. CAICW represents children and families across the nation who have been hurt by federal Indian policy – most notably the Indian Child Welfare Act – and who, as U.S. citizens, do not want tribal government control or interference in their family’s lives.
Our interest in Spirit Lake stems from not only having been contacted by several Spirit Lake residents asking for our help and prayers, but from a very personal level as well. My husband’s 16-yr-old grandson was shot and left for dead in a field at Spirit Lake on July 26, 2013. To this date, no one has been charged for the attempted murder of my husband’s grandson.
Family members have their own story of what happened and who shot him, but just as with so many traumatic abuses happening at Spirit Lake, Leech Lake, Red Lake, White Earth, Pine Ridge, Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Flathead Lake, Blackfoot, Warm Springs, and many other reservations – family talk is all there is. Violent crime goes often unreported, or when it is reported, nothing is done. While details of the shooting of my husband’s grandson remain unclear, the fact is that another child was hurt in the ongoing violence without anyone being charged for it – despite Spirit Lake being under the direct oversight of the BIA, FBI and U.S. Attorney. We look forward to and request an investigation into the real facts.
Drug and Gang Activity:
The family talk is that Jr. possibly stole drugs or money from his father, who is a member of a Minneapolis gang dealing drugs on the Spirit Lake Reservation. The two started physically fighting in the field, and family members report that Jr. was “getting the best” of his dad when he was suddenly shot. It is unclear whether it was his Dad or uncle who shot him.
Some might say that Jr., nearly an adult, asked for trouble. Others point out that his Dad is a member of a gang, selling drugs openly at Spirit Lake despite the ongoing presence of the BIA, FBI, and U.S. attorney – and that Jr. is another young person caught up in the climate of crime and violence so many children are threatened with in Spirit Lake and other reservations.
A 2013 ABC news article about gang activity on reservations reported:
“In the latest case, investigators said they were targeting a criminal enterprise that used intimidation and violence to maintain power. Prosecutors said the case was important not only because of its size, but because the racketeering charge is rarely used against gangs.
“The 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment called the Native Mob one of the largest and most violent American Indian gangs in the U.S., most active in Minnesota and Wisconsin but also in Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota. It is made up of mostly American Indian men and boys, and started in Minneapolis in the 1990s as members fought for turf to deal drugs. The Native Mob is also active in prison.
“The Native Mob had about 200 members, with a structure that included monthly meetings where members were encouraged to assault or kill enemies, or anyone who showed disrespect, according to the indictment. Authorities said McArthur would direct other members to carry out beatings, shootings and other violent acts to intimidate rivals.”(KARNOWSKI, 2013)
Jr’s Dad was arrested and jailed for two days, but then released. As far as the Leech Lake family knows, nothing has happened since.
Misrepresentation of the Needs of Children:
So much for what many tribal leaders, along with their friends at the Casey Foundation, NARF and NICWA, glowingly refer to when they say family is the “single most important mechanism of [Ai/AN] culture.] (Cross, 1995a, p. 3) and separation most assuredly endangers the child.
It is these very organizations that, in our experience, are a huge part of the problem in Indian Country as they continually infer that leaving children in dangerous homes on the reservation rather than providing them with safety and stability is not only better for the children – but somehow an inherent need.
They advocate leaving defenseless children in dangerous situations, arguing that only tribal government truly knows what they need and can care for them. They have convinced society that interference is akin to child abuse on the rescuers part – and possibly even a form of genocide.
This argument is made even if the tribal government does not have a working system to care for the children. This argument is made so often and so forcefully that it is believed, even as real evidence shows to the contrary.
A July 12, 2013, commentary in North Dakota papers, attorneys rebuked a local politician’s outcry over the murder of Spirit Lake 3-year-old Lauryn Whiteshield. Rushing and Moddelmog stated, “studies showed that American Indian children who have been removed from their ethnic and cultural heritage often suffer a host of psychological and identity issues, not counting the damage caused by the initial removal.” (Moddelmog, 2013)
The study referred to by Mr. Rushing and Mr. Moddelmog, just as with a 2012 NPR series purporting to investigate ICWA abuse (Ombudsman, 2013), was seriously flawed and came to extremely questionable conclusions. Tribal government apologists claim that children of even minute heritage who’ve never lived anywhere near a reservation or with a tribal member are going to suffer identity issues, as if there is an inherent gene that makes these children different from any other. In some circles, that is referred to as “racism.”
Interestingly, without any concern for psychological effect, ICWA is frequently used to remove children from non-Indian homes that better reflect the cultural heritage they are most comfortable with (ethnicity does not determine cultural heritage) than a home on the reservation.
It is also often claimed that Native American children do not need to live “by European Standards.” In 2006, an attorney for the Tohono O’odham Nation of Arizona, in attempt to justify taking children from a home they loved and placing them in a potentially unsafe home with strangers, claimed in an Arkansas court that Native American children don’t need beds and are content sleeping on floors. (Morris, 2007)
That statement is not only offensive and insulting, but untrue. Again, as a mother and representative of many families, I can attest that most of the children we are connected to would prefer a bed over a floor. Sometimes in our family’s chosen poverty, our children have slept two to a bed – but they would rather that than sleep on the floor.
Rushing and Moddelmog conclude with a quote from Judge William Thorne that “more than 60 percent of American Indian children in non-native foster care who age out of the system “are homeless, in prison, or dead by age 20.” They neglected to quote comparison percentages for children raised in foster care chosen by tribal government. Further, these children were fostered due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Many suffer with fetal alcohol related issues. How can one assume the sole reason for struggle is due to non-native homes?
This line of reasoning appears to be believed even as it flies in the face of common sense. There is factually no DNA to make children need a particular heritage or upbringing. In fact, the Human Genome Project has proven that no separate classifiable subspecies (race) exists within modern humans. In other words, there is no genetic racial difference between a person of Indian heritage and a person of English heritage. There exists only familial genes for facial structure, hair texture, eye color, and similar individual traits. This means it impossible for any entity to know the emotions and needs of a child if they do not have active knowledge of or relationship with that particular child.
Therefore, there is nothing a tribal social worker inherently knows about a child simply due to the child’s ethnic heritage. This includes children of 100% heritage who have been raised totally apart from the tribal community. A qualified expert witness needs to be someone who has not only met the child, but has worked with the child, is familiar with and understands the environment the child has thus far been raised in, and has professional experience with some aspect of the child’s emotional, physical or academic health. This is far more important than understanding the customs of a particular tribe.
To believe that one group of children is inherently more comfortable with and accepting of less safety and security than any other group of children is the epitome of racism. Believing such things might make it easier for federal government officials to deal with the human crisis on many reservations, but it is not unlike the degrading claims made against persons of Jewish heritage as part of Nazi rationale for putting them in slums. It is shocking that these unfounded assertions are coming from tribal leaders and their supporters – the very people who claim to represent the best interest of U.S. citizens of Native American heritage.
This is a huge disservice to the well-being of children – including my own and those we represent – who are individuals, not tribal assets, and who have their own voices, feelings, thoughts, goals, motivations and needs – none of which appear to be described accurately by these entities.
As the birth mother to several children of heritage, I strongly attest that my children have needed and thrived on safety, stability, and love. Like most people, they have had some interest in the various heritages of ancestors, but there has been no inherent need to be raised within Native American culture any more than that of their German Jewish or Irish Catholic heritages.
As the chairwoman of an organization representing families across the country – I attest the same for the families we represent. Safety, security and love are the vital needs of their children.
Former ND Lt. Governor Lloyd Omdahl stated in a July 1, 2013 news commentary that ICWA is “sacrificing children to protect the heritage of the tribes.” This appears to be the case every time tribal sovereignty is used as the reason to keep a child in dangerous home rather than choose a non-tribal home. (Omdahl, 2013)
Lauryn Whiteshield of Spirit Lake is one example. Other examples around the country include:
1. A Detective in Bonney Lake, WA, was forced by ICWA social workers to leave a toddler he’d been raising at the home of suspected drug dealers. The child was forced to stay there about 6 months before he was moved somewhere else. (Belford, 2012)
2. Because social workers believed ICWA demanded it, the Rodriguez boys of California were taken from the home of Hispanic grandparents and placed with their maternal grandmother on the Ute Reservation – a woman who’d abused and lost custody of her own kids. Within three weeks, the oldest was permanently brain damaged from being beaten. (Smart, 2004)
3. Sierra McGaughey, who joined us in DC in February, 2013, told Congressional staff she was torn from a safe home outside the Leech Lake reservation at the age of nine and placed in a relatives’ home, where she was given to a man as a sexual partner. She begged to return to where she felt loved, but wasn’t allowed to until she tried to hang herself at age 16. (Tevlin, 2013)
These are just some of the many stories.
Quoting Mr. Omdahl, “It is time to take another look at the federal foster care and adoption policy that keeps Indian children in homes that threaten their well-being while safe homes are automatically ruled out.”
Changing Demographics:
Criminal elements have taken over whole communities on many reservations because state and county law enforcement can’t reach them as easily within reservations boundaries. Further, casino money on reservation land is more profitable, and money can be made with drugs on the reservation. As these criminal elements moved in, many non-criminal tribal members have purposefully taken their families and moved out.
According to the last two U.S. censuses, 75% of tribal members DO NOT live in Indian Country – and many, like our families, have deliberately taken their children and left in order to protect their families from the rampant crime and corruption of the reservation system.
As a result, it isn’t just the lack of licensed foster homes plaguing Spirit Lake and other reservations – it is the inability to meet the mandates of the Indian Child Welfare Act in the form of safe, willing, relative homes. The lack of safe homes of relatives is what brings tribal governments to make placement in the homes of unsafe relatives.
– Thomas Sullivan concerning unsafe relatives:
Thomas Sullivan, Regional Administrator of the Administration of Children and Families in Denver, stated in his 12th Mandated Report concerning Spirit Lake to the ACF office in DC, February 2013:
“In these 8 months I have filed detailed reports concerning all of the following:
1. The almost 40 children returned to on-reservation placements in abusive homes, many headed by known sex offenders, at the direction of the Tribal Chair. These children remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators available to be raped on a daily basis. Since I filed my first report noting this situation, nothing has been done by any of you to remove these children to safe placements.2. The 45 children who were placed, at the direction of Tribal Social Services (TSS), BIA social workers, BIA supervised TSS social workers and the BIA funded Tribal Court, in homes where parents were addicted to drugs and/or where they had been credibly accused of abuse or neglect. Since I filed my first report noting these placements, nothing has been done to remove these children to safe placements. I trust the Tribal Court, with the recent resignation of a judge who failed a drug test, will begin to be responsive to the children whose placements they oversee.
3. The 25 cases of children most of whom were removed from physically and sexually abusive homes based on confirmed reports of abuse as well as some who still remain in those homes. Neither the BIA nor the FBI have taken any action to investigate or charge the adults in these homes for their criminally abusive acts. Many, of the adults in these homes are related to, or are close associates of, the Tribal Chair or other Council members.
“Since I filed my first report detailing these failures to investigate, charge, indict, prosecute those adults, my sources and I have observed nothing to suggest this has changed. Those adults remain protected by the law enforcement which by its inaction is encouraging the predators to keep on hunting for and raping children at Spirit Lake.
“When was the last time the US Attorney indicted a child rapist at Spirit Lake? How many child rape cases from Spirit Lake has he declined to prosecute during the last 18 months? How many Spirit Lake child rape cases have been prosecuted during those same 18 months? (Sullivan, 2013)”
Why had NICWA, NARF, NCAI and the Casey Foundation – all of whom make a large amount of money off what we have begun to call the “Indian industry” – not noticed that these children were living in such dangerous circumstances? What action did they take to get these children into immediate safety? How many children on other reservations is this happening to?
JULY 2014 NOTE:
– An attempt appeared to be made to discredit Mr. Sullivan during the oversight hearing Jun 24, 2014. It was claimed, for example, that he had never been to Spirit Lake Reservation, or at the least, was there only once 6 years ago, when in fact he had been there 3 or 4 times in the last 4 years (See attached July 1st letter). It was further omitted that he’d attempted to go meet with members of Spirit Lake in August of 2013 at the request of said members, who attested he was the only one they trusted to talk to. But his superiors in DC refused his travel request. (See attached email correspondence between Mr. Sullivan and ACF Superiors.)
– On July 3, 2014, Mr. Sullivan sent a letter to his superior expressing disappointment that he had never been informed by ACF that he had been invited to testify at the oversight hearing on June 24, 2014. (See attached June 25th letter)
Many families who have consciously left the reservation system in order to raise their children in a healthier setting have also become – due to the Indian Child Welfare Act – overly burdened with the need to raise the children of extended family members who had not left the system.
ICWA has scared some of us into taking children into our homes out of fear of what will happen to them if we don’t.
We were one of those families, overwhelmed raising four troubled grandchildren along with our five, but retaining custody of the four out of fear of what the tribal government might do with them.
All four grandchildren in our home suffered from varying degrees of fetal alcohol as well as some crack exposure and desperately needed was a loving, therapeutic home of any heritage. The “race” of the home should have been irrelevant in the face of their need for structure and strong, nurturing guidance. They were not given that gift.
In early 2013, I was asked to take a niece’s child. I was first asked to take him when he was just a few weeks old but declined at the time. I received several more calls about him throughout 2013, and was finally called in December by an ICWA worker from Leech Lake. I was later told by a county worker that I was the last hope and if I didn’t take him, he would be placed in the home of a relative where another child had died. So, of course I considered taking the now 14 month old baby. But after lots of thought and prayer, I decided I just can’t go through that again – taking a child out of fear. It had been too emotionally difficult. So after being assured they would not place him in the home they had mentioned to me, that they would keep me in the loop as to what was happening and that I could always change my mind if things went south for him, I gave them the final answer “no.”
This is the ridiculousness of the current situation for many children of tribal heritage. The county as well as the tribal ICWA worker, in this case, were considering placing a baby for adoption with a 53-yr-old non-native widow (me), rather than allowing the child to be adopted by a non-native father and mother who were a healthy, twenty years younger, and actively looking to raise a child.
What all these children have needed – but weren’t allowed to have – was licensed, trained, loving foster or adoptive homes that were open and ready to take them.
Many children at Spirit Lake and on other reservations, like it or not, are suffering from drug and alcohol exposure and need the gift of homes that can deal with the complex issues that come with that. In our extended family, we have several fetal alcohol adults raising fetal alcohol children. There is no wonder so many in the community struggle. The effects of alcohol on the brain are well-documented in relation to impulsivity and fearlessness of consequences. It’s time to quit putting our collective heads in the sand, pretending all of today’s issues are totally “the white man’s fault”. There is a whole lot more going on than just that.
Frankly, many in our extended family and those we represent in our organization do not know what NICWA, the Casey Foundation and others are referring to when they claim “formal foster care services are still foreign to Indian culture” (Cross, 1995b, P. 3) – as if our children are locked in some time warp.
What some in the tribal elite describe as the emotional needs of children with Native American heritage do not reflect our children at all. If they are unable to accurately describe the needs, thoughts and feelings of our children, they are most certainly unable to speak for them.
Why are Tribal Governments doing this?
According to Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney general for the Cherokee Nation, in 2012 the Cherokee Nation alone had over 100 attorneys targeting about 1,100 active Indian Child Welfare cases involving some 1,500 children across the nation.
Across America, children who had never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal customs, some with extremely minimal blood quantum – as well as some with maximum quantum – have been removed from homes they know and love and placed with strangers chosen by tribal governments.
What has become apparent is that several tribal governments have made control over children paramount. The child’s best interest has become secondary to a belief that tribal government has an inalienable right to whatever child they deem “theirs.” Some tribal governments, once they have decided they want a particular child, appear to pursue that goal whether or not there is an appropriate home available. Once obtained, the child is placed with whomever is willing to take them.
Federal dollars are connected to the U.S. Census and tribal rolls and tribal governments benefit financially from increased membership.
– According to Jack C. Jackson, Jr., Director of Governmental Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, “…American Indians and Alaska Natives have a significant stake in the outcome of the 2000 census…A significant portion of this federal aid is based on the information collected in the census.” (Jackson, 1999)
– According to the Administration For Children and Families, “Tribal Child Counts – For funds that become available in FY 2008, ACF will calculate grant awards based on the number of children under age 13. A Tribe must submit a self-certified Child Count Declaration for children under age 13 (not age 13 and under), in order to receive FY 2008 CCDF funds.”…“Levels vary from year to year. Child count does not reflect the number of children who actually receive services.” (ACF, 2007)
– According to QUILT, “Originally, ACF used existing, nationally published data for children under 16 … as the basis for tribal child counts. The change to self-certified counts of children under 13 was challenging for many Tribes …the Child Care Bureau gradually implemented the self-certification process over a number of years. (Quilt, 2004)
It is common sense that abuse happens when you put a price on people’s heads. Abuse happens when humans are put in the position of chattel.
Our organizations experience with Spirit Lake:
1. A Spirit Lake grandmother sent us a picture of her little girl and said the girl is living in the home of a sexual offender and is being abused, but her attempts to talk to Spirit Lake tribal social services about it have been met with hostility. She faxed what appears to be some documentation from the off-reservation Devil’s Lake Police and social services in the past. (attached)
2. I attended the Spirit Lake town hall meeting in February, 2013, where one member after another stood up to tell the panel of tribal and federal officials tragic stories of abuse, and how they had tried to get tribal police, the BIA and the U.S Attorney to pay attention and do something. As they told their stories of continuing abuse of children, officials on the panel claimed that everything that can be done, has been done. “Investigations take time” U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon said over and over.
• Concerning the many reports of abuse that Sullivan had written to his superiors, U.S. Attorney Purdon claimed at the town hall meeting that Sullivan had “misrepresented the facts. Mr. Purdon failed to realize when saying this – that he was saying it to the very people who had been reporting the abuse to Sullivan.
• An elder got up at the end of the meeting and tried to tell the panel about abuse she had witnessed, but was shushed by the tribal chair and not allowed to speak. He said, “We all know your story already. Tell it to someone after the meeting.” He closed the meeting without her telling her story. As I rose to leave, I asked others around me what it was she had been trying to say. They said she had seen a 6-year old and 8-year old having anal sex on her front lawn. She called the police, but no one ever came to take her story. To that day at the meeting, law enforcement had never taken her story. The children were related to a council member. A few days later after the hearing, the children were seen on a school bus involved in another sexual act with each other. The tribal chair had stated that everyone knew her story. If so – why was nothing ever done?
3. In June 2013, we were asked to write about and post the story of 3-year-old Lauryn Whiteshield, who, under the BIA and US Attorney’s watch was murdered after having been taken from a safe home in Bismarck and placed with her grandfather, who was living with a woman known to abuse children. The woman abused both her and her twin sister and murdered this little girl within a month of her arrival. This case did get media attention in North Dakota, and as a result, the perpetrator was quickly arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned all within five months. Jeanine Russell, the non-native foster mom for the surviving twin, was asked by the FBI to write and read a victim’s impact statement for the sentencing of Hope Whiteshield, the murderer of Lauryn. We were told she asked the judge to hold her accountable but also hold a broken system accountable. She talked about the lost life of a little girl but also how the federal governed allowed it to happen, and said ICWA can be an evil law when twisted to fit the tribes wants or needs. That said, Spirit Lake is just a microcosm of abuse that appears widespread in Indian Country. About the same this happened to these twins in North Dakota, the same thing was happening to twin boys in South Dakota. As of this writing, no one has been convicted for the murder of that twin boy, although we are told much evidence points to the father.
4. Two foster mothers have written to us, concerned for the Spirit Lake children they were caring for and asking for our help to keep those children safe.
5. A birth mother who is an enrolled member of Spirit Lake contacted us in June, 2014, asking for help as she prepared to go before tribal court.
6. A law enforcement officer connected to Spirit Lake, who asked to remain anonymous, contacted us just prior to the June 24th oversight hearing to tell us additional stories of abuse and his concern that in many cases, he and others have felt their hands were tied having to submit to whatever the tribal government wanted done with abused children or other victims.
It is impossible for us to wrap our heads around how and why this can continue to be allowed. How can our country – our government – stand by while a certain segment of children are routinely abused?
Our Congress didn’t stand by when the best interest of children in Russia was in question. Late Tuesday night, January 1st, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed S. Res. 628, expressing disappointment over a Russian law banning adoption of children by American citizens. Senator Inhofe, one of two Senate Co-chairs of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption, stated,
“It is extremely unfortunate and disheartening that the Russian Duma and President Putin would choose to deprive the children, the very children that they are entrusted to care for, the ability to find a safe and caring family that every child deserves…It is nothing more than a political play…that ultimately leads to greater hardships and more suffering for Russian children who will now be denied a loving family.”
CCA Members of Congress have also sent a bi-partisan letter to President Putin urging him to veto the legislation, stating,
“We fear that this overly broad law would have dire consequences for Russian children…Nothing is more important to the future of our world than doing our best to give as many children the chance to grow up in a family as we possibly can.”
Further, on June 30, 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama stated in a letter to Speaker John Boehner that the children crossing our southern border are an urgent humanitarian situation and the U.S. has a legal and moral obligation to make sure they are appropriately cared for.
That being the case, and Native American children already wards of the United States government, why has so little been done to alleviate the humanitarian crisis within our reservation system?
Cause?
We are told the cause of crime and corruption in Indian Country is poverty and “Historical Trauma,” and that additional funding will solve the problems. Yet, crime and corruption are never made better and can never be made better by giving those responsible for the crime and corruption more money.
Despite claims by tribal leaders and entities such as NICWA, NARF and Casey Foundation, our families don’t suffer from “Historical Trauma.” If my personal family were to suffer from any type of historical trauma, it would more likely be due to relatives dying in the Holocaust in Germany.
However, if any in my immediate family, other than my father who experienced it, were to exhibit trauma related to the Holocaust, it would likely be regarded as unhealthy. Prolonged, delayed, or otherwise unresolved grieving over a long period of time is considered unhealthy – even more so if the trauma occurred to someone else, was not witnessed by oneself, and didn’t even happen in one’s lifetime.
We further disagree with the offensive premise by many that low income is the cause of crime simply because some people with little income have committed crime. Persons with middle incomes and even extremely high incomes have been known to exhibit criminal behavior as well. Criminal intention comes from within the heart, not outside of it.
Lastly, tribal members are not permanently destined to be forever victims, forever in need of government assistance. The very suggestion is profoundly insulting and paternalistic.
We all have varied choices in how we live our lives. Interestingly, many of U.S. citizens of Native American heritage have purposefully chosen not to live under the auspices of tribal and federal government – nor in the limited “cultural” box defined by entities such as NICWA, NARF and the Casey Foundation – despite the many attempts by these organizations to close people into that box.
It is often hard to hear the true voices of many tribal members. If there is one thing that seems to run culturally, it is the choice to remain relatively silent in the face of tribal government corruption. But social media has been opening people up across the nation. Note this public Facebook post by a tribal member on Friday, June 27, 2014. It is similar to what our organization hears from affected people every day…
Leech Lakers Unite
Good evening to all of you. Thank you for all your comments. There are many issues that seem so fixable if we would have one person willing to stand up and be the voice for the people and lead by example at the RBC level. We all see and know of individuals who are using company cars for their personal use. Driving their families and friends around. Yet even when employees are not held accountable for killing with tribal owned vehicles our infamous RBC still allows some to drive company vehicles. The white laws are the only ones holding these men accountable. Where is a public apology to these families from our leaders. Robbie Howe now wants severance huh? She already got her severance when she got paid for not coming to work. If she gets one, you can thank our so called leaders for that. We hear she is sick and if this is the case and it stopped her from performing her daily job functions she should have stepped down and our joke of a Chair, Carri and Secretary/treasurer should have asked her to step down. Here they come, Archies crew. Mike Myers, non band member. Randy Finn and Frank Bebeau, another non band member who has never won a single case for Leech Lake EVER! Yet has Archies loyality. It will never change people until you demand more out of of so called leaders. Vote count was lower and bravo to all of you who made a statement by not voting in someone you dont believe in. You should check and see if your name was used illegally just in case.
The facts are:
1) According to the last two U.S. censuses, 75% of tribal members DO NOT live in Indian Country – and many, like our families, have deliberately taken their children and left in order to protect their families from the rampant crime and corruption of the reservation system.
2) The abuses at Spirit Lake in North Dakota are well known, but it is also known that Spirit Lake is just a microcosm of what’s happening on many reservations across the country.
3) Gang activity involving drugs is heavy and rampant on many reservations. There are children dying within Indian Country whose names don’t make it to the media – and for whom justice is never given.
4) These abuses are rampant on many reservations because the U.S. Government has set up a system that allows extensive abuse to occur unchecked and without repercussion.
5) Many, many times more children leave the reservation system in the company of their parents, who have mass exited – than do children who have been taken into foster care or found a home in adoption. But tribal leaders can’t admit many parents are consciously taking their kids out of Indian Country in attempt to get them away from the reservation system and corrupt leaders. It makes a better sound bite to blame it on evil social services
It’s time to stop listening to those with a vested financial interest in increasing tribal government power, and learn more about the physical, emotional, sexual and financial abuse of tribal members by other tribal members and even many tribal leaders.
Every time power to tribal leaders is increased, tribal members – U.S. citizens – are robbed of civil freedoms under the constitution of the United States.
More power given to tribal leaders means less freedom and constitutional rights for tribal members. Equal Protection, for example, is a constitutional right.
To better protect children, we need to:
A. Guarantee protection for children of Native American heritage equal to that of any other child in the United States.
B. Guarantee that fit parents, no matter their heritage, have the right to choose healthy guardians or adoptive parents for their children without concern for heritage.
C. Recognize the “Existing Indian Family Doctrine” as a viable analysis for consideration and application in child custody proceedings. (See In re Santos Y, In Bridget R., and In re Alexandria Y.)
D. Guarantee that United States citizens, no matter their heritage, have a right to fair trials.
• When summoned to a tribal court, parents and legal guardians will be informed of their legal rights, including USC 25 Chapter 21 1911 (b)“…In any State court proceeding for the foster care placement of, or termination of parental rights to, an Indian child not domiciled or residing within the reservation of the Indian child’s tribe, the court, in the absence of good cause to the contrary, shall transfer such proceeding to the jurisdiction of the tribe, absent objection by either parent…”
• Under the principles of comity: All Tribes and States shall accord full faith and credit to a child custody order issued by the Tribe or State of initial jurisdiction consistent within the UCCJA – which enforces a child custody determination by a court of another State – unless the order has been vacated, stayed, or modified by a court having jurisdiction to do so under Article 2 of the UCCJA.E. Include well defined protections for Adoptive Parents.
F. Mandate that a “Qualified expert witness” be someone who has professional knowledge of the child and family and is able to advocate for the well being of the child, first and foremost.
G. Mandate that only parents and/or legal custodians have the right to enroll a child into an Indian Tribe. Because it is claimed that tribal membership is a political rather than racial designation, we are asking that parents, as U.S. citizens, be given the sole, constitutional right to choose political affiliation for their families and not have it forced upon them.
• Remove the words “or are eligible for membership in” 1901 (3)
• Remove the words “eligible for membership in” from 1903 (4) (b), the definition of an ‘Indian child’ and replace with the words “an enrolled member of”
Read more detail and citations for these points in the attached document, “To Better Protect the Children.”
It is time for balder-dash to end and genuine concern begin.
Thank you again for your patience and willingness to hear our concerns.
Elizabeth Sharon Morris
Chairwoman
Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW)
PO Box 460
Hillsboro, ND 58045
administrator@caicw.org
References:
ACF. (2007). Tribal Child Counts. Washington DC: Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance. Log No: CCDF-ACF-PI-2007-02
Belford, D. (Director). (2012). Life with James [Video Clip].
Benedict, J. (2000). Without Reservation. New York: Harper.
Cross, T.L. (1995a). Heritage & helping: A model curriculum for Indian child welfare practice, Module II: Protective services for Indian children. Portland, OR: National Indian Child Welfare Association.
Cross, T.L. (1995b). Heritage & helping: A model curriculum for Indian child welfare practice, Module IV: Family-centered services for Indian children. Portland, OR: National Indian Child Welfare Association.
In re SANTOS Y., B144822 (Cal. App. 4th, Second Dist. Div. Two July 20, 2001).
Jackson, J. C. (1999, February 12). Director of Government Affairs. (U. C. Rights, Interviewer) Retrieved from Jack C. Jackson, Jr., Director of Governmental Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, Statement on the importance of an accurate census to American Indians and Alaska Natives, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., http://www.ncai.org/ncai/resource/documents/governance/cvrightcensus.
KARNOWSKI, S. (2013). Feds Say Native Mob Gang Dented but Work Remains. Minneapolis: ABC News.
Kershaw, S. (2006, February 19), Tribal Underworld: Drug Traffickers Find Haven in Shadows of Indian Country, New York Times
Lawrence, B. (2007). Publisher. Native American Press/Ojibwe News.
Moddelmog, T. R. (2013). Rebuttal. Grand Forks: Grand Fork Herald.
Morris, E. (2007). VIEWPOINT: Law could tear children from a ‘tribe’ they love . Grand Forks: Grand Forks Herald.
Morris, Roland John. (1998). Testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs. Seattle: Concerning Tribal corruption and Jurisdiction.
Morrison, S.K., (1998), Testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on tribal sovereignty and tribal courts, Choctaw Attorney; Wilburton, Oklahoma;
Omdahl, L. (2013, July). Commentary by Former ND Lt. Governor. Grand Forks: Grand Forks Herald.
Quilt. (2004). Child Counts. Warm Spring: NCCIC. http://www.nccic.org/Tribal/effective/warmsprings/childcounts.html
Smart, P. M. (2004). In Harm’s Way. The Salt Lake Tribune.
Sullivan, T. F. (2013). 12th Mandated Report. Denver: ACF.
Tevlin, J. (2013, February 12). Tevlin: Sierra shares lessons on Indian adoption. Retrieved from StarTribune.com: http://www.startribune.com/local/190953261.html?refer=y
SD: Indian Foster Care 1: NPR Investigative Storytelling Gone Awry
National Public Radio Ombudsman – August 09, 2013
My finding is that the series was deeply flawed and should not have been aired as it was. Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 2: Abuse In Taking Children From Families?: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943868/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-2-abuse-in-taking-children-from-families?ft=1&f= Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 3: Filthy Lucre: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943952/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-3-filthy-lucre Also: Indian Foster Care 4: The Mystery Of A Missing $100 Million: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/209282064/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-4-the-mystery-of-a-missing-100-million Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 5: Who Is To Blame For Native Children In White Homes?: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/209528755/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-5-who-is-to-blame-for-native-children-in-white-homes Also: S. Dakota Indian Foster Care 6: Where It All Went Wrong – The Framing: http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/203038778/s-dakota-india
Full NPR Ombudsman Report: http://www.scribd.com/doc/159252168/Full-NPR-Ombudsman-Report-South-Dakota-Foster-Care-Investigative-Storytelling-Gone-Awry
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2013/08/09/186943929/s-dakota-indian-foster-care-1-investigative-storytelling-gone-awry
Attached:
A Pilot Study of Compliance in North Dakota, (December 2000) by NICWA and Casey Family Programs
BIA ICWA Guideline Changes (April 30, 2014) by Elizabeth Morris
Documents from a Spirit Lake family asking for help with Granddaughter (2013)
Domestic and Sexual Violence outside the Reservations in North Dakota get lots of attention from the ACF. (September 2013) Email Correspondence between ACF Officials
Feds Say Native Mob Dented, but Work Remains (2013), by Steve Karnowski
Routine Cruelty (2001), by Thomas Sowell
Testimony of Roland John Morris Sr. before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (1998) – Concerning tribal corruption and jurisdiction
Tom Sullivan’s attempt to go to Spirit Lake, (August, 2013) – email correspondence between Tom Sullivan and his DC Superiors
Tom Sullivan’s Response to Chairman McDonald’s Hearing Testimony (June 25, 2014) by Thomas Sullivan, Regional Director of the Administration for Children and Families
Tom Sullivan’s Response to ACF Superior Ms. McMullen, (July 1, 2014) – by Thomas Sullivan, Regional Director of the Administration for Children and Families
To Better Protect the Children, by Elizabeth Morris
Numerous letters of pain from Families across the U.S.
In a July 12th commentary in North Dakota papers, attorneys Tobias Rushing and Robert Moddelmog criticized former ND Lt. Governor Lloyd Omdahl for his July 1st column concerning the Indian Child Welfare Act.
Mr. Omdahl had stated that ICWA is “sacrificing children to protect the heritage of the tribes.” Rushing and Moddelmog noted that “the findings of Congress’s Indian Child Welfare Act Commission of 1973 show…the contrary.” I am certain it is not lost on readers that these findings are 40 years old. Now let’s discuss today.
I’m appalled that attorneys would make the absolute statement “An abusive Indian family does not take precedence over a safe non-Indian family, ever.” A three-year-old girl was thrown down an embankment and beaten to death in Spirit Lake just last month. Clearly, abusive extended family DID take precedence over a safe non-Indian family. Other examples:
There are many stories from across the country.
Thomas Sullivan, Regional Administrator of the Administration of Children and Families in Denver, stated in his 12th Mandated Report to the ACF office in DC, February 2013:
“In these 8 months I have filed detailed reports concerning all of the following:
“…Those adults remain protected by the law enforcement which by its inaction is encouraging the predators to keep on hunting for and raping children at Spirit Lake.
Rushing and Moddelmog also state, “studies showed that American Indian children who have been removed from their ethnic and cultural heritage often suffer a host of psychological and identity issues, not counting the damage caused by the initial removal.”
Yet, without any concern for psychological effect, ICWA is frequently used to remove children from non-Indian homes that better reflect their ethnic and cultural heritage than a home on the reservation. Tribal apologists claim that children of even minute heritage who’ve never lived anywhere near a reservation or with a tribal member are going to suffer identity issues, as if there is an inherent gene that makes these children different from any other. In some circles, that is referred to as “racism.”
Rushing and Moddelmog include a quote from Judge William Thorne that “more than 60 percent of American Indian children in non-native foster care who age out of the system “are homeless, in prison, or dead by age 20.” Where are comparison percentages for children raised in native foster care? Further, these children were fostered due to abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Many suffer with fetal alcohol related issues. How can the sole reason for struggle be due to non-native homes?
Finally, while an American Indian grandmother who adopts a child qualifies for the benefits of any adoptive parent, most children are not “adopted” by extended Indian family. In Minnesota, those caring for unadopted relatives receive “Relative Custody Assistance,” which can be over $700 per child per month. I am speaking from personal experience having been an ICWA approved home.
Yup, I “raked in” thousands of dollars in state benefits as an ICWA home. Over 16 years, it added up to almost $90,000, not including medical care the kids received from the state. And I am first to say these children would’ve been better off had a therapeutic foster home trained to take care of special needs been allowed – no matter the heritage of the foster parents.
It is time for balder-dash to end and genuine concern begin.
Quoting Mr. Omdahl, “It is time to take another look at the federal foster care and adoption policy that keeps Indian children in homes that threaten their well-being while safe homes are automatically ruled out.”
Elizabeth Sharon Morris is Chairwoman of the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare and author of ‘Dying in Indian Country.’ http://dyinginindiancountry.com/
The below was written by “Cat” – also known as “Restless Spirit.
I will be taking the text of her article and sending it to our Senators on the Indian Affairs Committee and asking for both an explanation and action. I urge you all to do the same. This child was removed from a safe foster home only one month ago. How many more children are they going to allow this to happen to?
It also time for our churches to get involved. Many churches seem too afraid to speak up to this factual truth. But these kids can’t keep waiting.
Restless Spirit ~Cat June 17, 2013
Known and Unknown
One of the 3-yr old twin girls died. There is a lot of speculation as to how she died, and given the family history, I can see why the first conclusion that is jumped to, is that she was abused.
We don’t know.
The FBI and the BIA were investigating as soon as it was reported, early Thursday morning. The BIA and the FBI, the very ones who should be nowhere near this case, are investigating. The same FBI that destroyed evidence and ordered others to destroy evidence at the Dubois children’s murder scene. The same BIA that has ‘taken over Tribal Social Services’, ‘Strike Team’, and the same BIA that has more domestic abusers and outright rapists on their payroll, is ‘investigating’ this death. Anyone trust that the outcome will be the Truth? My expectations are very low.
What we also know is that this child, her twin sister and other siblings were in Foster Care up until a month ago. Their mother and father both in prison up until a month ago. The mother had been arrested for Felony Child abuse and it was horrendous. The twins in 2011, just infants, so badly neglected or abused that they had to be in hospital for two weeks before they could be released to Foster care, where they were lovingly nursed back to full health, vitality and had a chance at being healthy happy kids.
The mother and father are somewhere. I don’t know. My understanding is that they were not living in the home where the children were. They were in Fargo or Bismarck or somewhere. The Children were being raised by their grandfather, and no one has yet to contact me with a bad word to say about him.
What We Know
It will be awhile before we know what happened to the little girl. Her blood family is grieving this, and her Foster family must be sick with grief over the loss. It was just about a month ago when they had the children they had so lovingly cared for, ripped out of their homes, the way the Tribal Social Services likes to rip kids away. No notice, not transition, no reason — gone.
I know that no grandfather, regardless of how much he loves his grandchildren, is going to be able to keep up with twin 3-yr olds day in and day out. No matter how he tried.
We know that Suna Guy, registered sex offender and blood relative to the children, lived right next door.
I know that no child would be placed in an environment where there is not both adequate care and one which no registered sex offender would be permitted such close proximity to vulnerable children. Did Suna have anything to do with this? WE DON’T KNOW.
The remaining children were removed from the home, at around 10 PM that night, over 12 hours after the report of the death. Bentley GreyBear, an abuser himself, walked into the home, without so much as paperwork, and said he was taking the kids. He didn’t say where he was taking them. The family didn’t get to say goodbye. The children were dragged out of their beds and into his vehicle and driven away in the night.
Think about that. The children had just been traumatized by the death of their sister, and then, in their sleep, they were roused and packed off without so much as a hug goodbye. Tell me how that shows any consideration whatsoever for those children?
And, what IF, just IF, it turns out this child died from something that had nothing to do with the household? That family was just traumatized even more by not being able to say good bye or hug those kids to reassure them as they were leaving.
The kids out there? Ripped and flung around like emotional rag dolls. Good Job, Bentley. I always wondered what went wrong with your nephew, Linden GreyBear, and the more I get to know about you, the more that picture is coming into focus as well.
Does the BIA not even care to attempt to show professionalism in any aspect?
Sadly, not.
Now, the blood family knows what the Foster Family went through. More trauma, more abuse, and they were helpless to so much as comfort the children, crying and screaming as they were being dragged away. Despicable.
So, right now, until we know, there’s not much we can do except to wait for the autopsy results, witness statements, and whatever the clown car investigators come up with.
A news crew from Valley News came out to do a report on the death of the child and to interview people regarding the safety of children on the rez. The cameraman, a ‘ Six-foot-six Black Man’ had just set up his camera for an interview when he was jumped by… Suna Guy. Not sure how all that went down.
I heard one version that I consider preposterous: It basically said that the cameraman was looking for a fight and threw the first punch. What I find laughable about that is that no cameraman would do that. That camera is a BIG Ticket item. It is handled with care. I can’t imagine any cameraman, regardless of how big or black he is, putting that kind of equipment at risk. Cameramen never let go of their cameras. No one ‘starts a fight’ with one hand holding onto several thousand dollars of camera.
Plus, given the size of the man, it’s my guess that if he ‘threw the first punch’, Suna Guy would still be trying to guess what day of the week this is. That story just doesn’t make sense to me. Their claim that the Cameraman was trespassing makes no sense either. If that were the case, the Tribal Police would have moved them. Attacking was strictly an attempt to intimidate the news crew. They don’t want people looking in and asking questions.
They don’t want you or me or anyone else to know what kind of a place they are running out there.
Suna was arrested for the assault and Weenie Boy called up the cop shop and talked to Mary McDonald (the same Mary McDonald) and told her he wanted Suna released. A few hours later, Suna Guy, Registered Sex Offender, who had just assaulted a news crew, was released on his own recognizance. Yeah, Tribal Judges and Tribal Chairman, they can do anything.
Anyone who buys Suna’s version of this debacle, I have a bridge to sell you.
Why was it so personally important to Weenie Boy (Roger Yankton) to have Suna released without bond? People are upset and so am I. We all are.
Who To Blame
I’m looking at this from an over 2 yr view of now, 13 Mandated Reports from Thomas Sullivan’s Office, describing exactly the kind of dangers these children are being put in by the scam artists at the BIA, State, and Federal Officials, including Timothy Q Purdon, who assures us that there is no problem out there, and the children are safe because the BIA are ‘career professionals’ like himself.
They all ignored all 13 Mandated Reports and never once followed up, according to either protocol nor the law. I hold responsible the following:
All of these people have been told, repeatedly, what is going on out there. They have been pleaded with as to how urgent the situation was. All this after the murder of the DuBois children, and yet, not one of them has lifted a finger, set up a task force and all have been happy enough to move on to other business because, “The BIA is handling this.”
Not Responsible
I cannot hold the mother responsible. It was clear in 2011 that she was unfit, and that no one in the family was able to take on the raising of the babies, for whatever reason. The mother is an addict, was just released from prison, and is not living near her children. Nor is the father. If any of this is wrong, let me know. She is not capable of taking care of herself, and anyone in government that decided she should, with assessment, without parental training, be suddenly responsible, is out of their minds.
The father was also, far as I know, completely removed from the scene.
Yes, they are awful parents. They are seriously damaged people. They are part of the Human Wreckage you get when you allow multiple generations of PTSD go untreated in a community and you allow and support the most corrupt, despicable elements to run the place. This is what you get. They can’t help themselves, they can’t be held accountable for what all the suits in government do. The suits are accountable.
I don’t know if this child died from neglect or abuse or ‘natural causes’. SIDS does not occur in children over the age of 1 yr. (See: Kid’s Health and other related articles: http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/sids.html ).
Something happened to her. What, how or by whom, we don’t know.
What we DO KNOW is that there are children still in dangerous and abusive homes out there. The Tribal Council is corrupt, the BIA is corrupt, The FBI has failed to investigate the crimes against children for over 2 years of official notification. The USAG’s office has failed to even try to protect these kids.
That child’s body should be laid at their doorstep. They could have prevented this. They chose not to. Worse, they chose to ridicule, harass, threaten those who have been, for years, reporting the crimes and corruption, and especially the danger to children, for all this time. Direct your outrage in their direction.
If they find that this child was murdered or worse, they will happily trot out the perpetrator (unless it is a close friend or relative of the Tribal Chair and the Tribal Council). We will all be expected to boo and hiss, and condemn that one person. They will be looking down at the ground, they will be in shackles, they will look dirty and they will look just like the kind of person that would do such a thing.
As despicable as this is, the most despicable are those in offices, wearing suits, going to power lunches and meetings, and giving press releases about how their offices have been ‘working’ on this for …. And vowing to ‘prosecute to the fullest…’ I say, prosecute them all. Especially the suits.
Now, let’s all wait and see.
It’s almost assured that before we know what happened this time, there will be another. There will be trauma, outrage, outpouring of grief, denial and more outrage. You know where to direct your outrage. It’s time they have all been held accountable for both breaking the system and for lying about it being broken.
Hold them accountable for failing to protect, to investigate, or care.
Summary:
But we know it has happened before and it will happen again until the BIA, the FBI, the State, County, Federal as well as the Tribal Chair and Tribal Council are finally held to account for their corruption and abuse.
Until the Mandated Reports are treated according to protocol and the law, nothing will change. We know all these agencies and Departments had the chance, for the past Two Years, to prevent this… and they didn’t.
There are more children out there, in much worse situations.
You know where to find me.
~Cat
Child Abuse Continues Unhindered On Spirit Lake Indian Reservation
Known Sex Offenders Have 24/7 Access To Young Children
Grand Forks, ND – About 40 reported cases of children in abusive homes has been ignored and possibly covered up according an interoffice report of the Administration of Children and Families in Denver. This report was recently leaked to the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW), in which details horrific, ongoing physical and sexual child abuse, which appears to have been consistently covered up by various federal and tribal officials.
In the report states “almost 40 children returned to on-reservation placements in abusive homes, many headed by known sex offenders, at the direction of the Tribal Chair. These children remain in the full time care and custody of sexual predators available to be raped on a daily basis. Since I filed my first report noting this situation, nothing has been done by any of you to remove these children to safe placements.” according to the Twelfth Mandated Report Concerning Suspected Child Abuse on the Spirit Lake Reservation, which was filed by Thomas F. Sullivan.
Elizabeth Morris, Chairman of CAICW, has informed the state’s U.S. legislators of these atrocities and she is appalled that “The same atrocities that have been occurring for years and were reported last summer – are still going on, and apparently, according to this report, our federal government is doing nothing about it…Are Russian children, who the entire Senate voted to support on January 1st, more important than children suffering domestically?”
The staff of Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) responded that a town-hall meeting is scheduled at Spirit Lake Casino and Resort on Wednesday, Feb 27th, but the meeting time has changed several times and no leaders are talking about closing the meeting. Last year, at a similar meeting a former teacher, Betty Krenz, had been calling attention to this type of child abuse was blocked from entering the meeting by a tribal guard.
CAICW is concerned that since this abuse has occurred under the oversight of tribal leadership that many tribal and foster parents will not feel safe to share openly at a casino. CAICW publically demands that the meeting be moved to a neutral venue where parents can safely share their concerns. Children and families are far more important than politics.
The Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAICW) was formed for charitable, religious, and educational purposes as both a ministry and advocacy group. CAICW been advocating since February 2004 for families at risk of harm from the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Our advocacy has been both judicial and educational, as well as a prayer resource for families and a shoulder to cry on.
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On October 27th, 2011, I walked through the drizzle, past Union Station and up Massachusetts Avenue to find the offices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
I was in DC to speak to various congressional staff about harms caused by the Indian Child Welfare Act and to invite people to the ‘Teach-In’ our organization was holding on Friday, Oct. 28th in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing room. I hoped that the CCAI would be interested because ICWA has been hurting children and adoptive families across the country and at some point, there needed to be an honest discussion about it.
Finding the office in a rowhouse a couple blocks from the Senate buildings, I climbed the steps and went in. Two women quietly listened while I shared with a third the purpose of my visit. Across America, children who had never been near a reservation nor involved in tribal community – including multi-racial children with extremely minimal blood quantum – have been removed from homes they know and love and placed with strangers chosen by tribal social services.
When I was finished talking, the woman, who had been listening attentively, told me she had just finished an ICWA story for NPR, and that she supported the tribal position. I initially thought she meant she had been writer for it, but now wonder if she simply meant she had been following it. At any rate, she was kind, and I was able to tell her some of the flip side and invite her to our Teach-in. She was polite and accepted the folder of letters from hurting families. She did not come to the Teach-in.
I had heard small bits about the NPR series from two Congressional offices the day before, and over the next few days a couple of our members also notified me about it. Two of my brothers even sent me links to the article. One friend wrote to me on Facebook that the NPR series had her yelling at the radio. With so much attention to the series, a rebuttal is necessary.
As the birth mother of five enrolled children, the legal custodian of three others, the legal adoptive mother of one and emotionally adopted mother of another, I can tell you what NPR did NOT report.
First, not ALL enrollable persons want to live on the reservation or be under tribal jurisdiction.
Persons of tribal heritage are no different than any other human. Each individual has their own mind, wants and needs. Blood Quantum has nothing to do with an individuals decision to participate in reservation life: some persons of 100% heritage choose to live separate from the tribe while some who have very little heritage choose to identify totally with the tribe. The notion that there is some hereditary tie – an inherent gene binding children to a single cultural tradition or geographic location is not factual.
According to the 2000 Census –
• There are 4,119,301 people claiming to have American Indians and Alaska Native ancestry in the United States and 562 federally funded Tribes. This population includes individuals with too little blood quantum to be tribal members as well as individuals who are members of state recognized tribes.
• Approximately 75% live outside the reservation, with about 55% living in metropolitan areas. Only about 25% live on the reservations.
• As much as 45% of reservation residents are non-Indian. (On some reservations, it is reported that as much as 80% might be non-Indian.)
• On 30% of the reservations, the number of non-members is equal to or greater than the number of tribal members.
• The Montana Supreme Court, in Skillen v. Menz, wrote, “Interracial marriages are a fact of life, and, as with other marriages, so are interracial divorces and custody disputes over the children of those marriages.”
The above facts are the reason we are having troubles with the Indian Child Welfare Act.
1. Most people of Indian heritage choose to live and raise their families outside of the reservation system.
2. Most people of Indian heritage have more than one heritage – meaning extended family from other heritages as well.
Now, while the 2010 Census indicates that the reservation populations may have increased over the last ten years (The Seattle Times, May 6, 2011, asserts this is due to “successful casinos and other business ventures, including commercial fishing operations, economic opportunity…”) the fact remains that most enrollable children live off the reservation and MOST enrollable children have non-enrolled family members.
So while it is simple to interview only people who live on South Dakota reservations and enjoy the lifestyle found there – those who were interviewed represent only a fraction of all tribal members, reservation residents, and enrollable citizens. Further, South Dakota itself and the reservations within its boundaries don’t represent all 50 states or 562 tribes.
Was NPR providing one-sided coverage?
Having taken a full year to do their investigation, why didn’t NPR interview many of the 75% of enrollable citizens who have chosen to live off the reservation? Many, like my husband, chose to leave the reservation for good cause and raise their children differently.
While some seek economic advantages, poverty itself isn’t a bad thing or the only reason for leaving. Some of our most content years as a family were living on a couple acres in the middle of a corn field, raising goats and chickens. But crime, hopelessness, and child neglect – which is not the same as poverty – is a bad thing. Many people choose to raise their children in a safer setting.
NPR attempts to discount the impact neglect has on children by stating, “…in South Dakota very few are taken because they’ve been physically or sexually abused. Most are taken under a far more subjective set of circumstances. The state says the parents are neglectful.”
But neglect is a valid issue of concern for children of all heritages. While some readers have come to the defense of the mother in the NPR story whose children had been left alone, the fact is that there was evidence of frequent neglect. Quote from the story; “The children, however, had a plan for situations like this. If they were ever left alone or if someone was drinking at home, they were always instructed to go across the street, to their grandma’s. If she wasn’t there, the back door would be left unlocked.”
In other words – this had happened before, and often enough that the kids needed to have a plan. NPR brushes this off as if it is a non-issue that the kids would need to seek refuge from their home. NPR, it is NOT a non-issue. What is being described IS a dangerous situation. The children were left alone. No, this does not happen in every home in America. The fact that many residents on various reservations gloss over and treat such things as a non-issue is testimony to the severity of the problem – and yes, the need for intervention.
There seems to be an inconsistency with people unfamiliar with reservations who, on the one hand, decry poverty on reservations while on the other hand maintain a belief that Indian people – and in particular, children – prefer to live in conditions most other families find dangerous. What is particularly disconcerting about this assumption is the underlying idea that Indian people don’t mind living in crime ridden, dirty circumstances.
What is most upsetting about this series, having watched so many children in our extended family suffer from neglect and abuse, is the implication that most children are removed for no cause. The biggest grief my husband and I have had over the years was that more children weren’t removed sooner. I have chased a drunk off a 10-year-old girl, stood at the casket of a 2-year-old who had been beaten to death, stood in the closet where a beautiful 16-year-old had just hanged herself, begged a hospital not to release a 15-yr-old back to the streets with her newborn daughter, and sat in shock when I was called a few weeks later by a relative hoping that I had that same baby, because the 15-year-old had “lost” her the night before while drinking.
One Minneapolis social worker once told me that the only reason my husband’s grandchildren weren’t removed from their parents sooner was because of the Indian Child Welfare Act. He said that had they been of any other heritage, they would have been protected much sooner.
In one family story that NPR highlighted, the author takes the family’s word that there had never been any prescription drug abuse –which is rampant on many reservations – and thus no reason for the children to have been taken. I don’t know if there was or wasn’t, but I wouldn’t blame social services for being cautious. Many in our extended family heavily abuse prescription drugs. I have raised four extra children in my home, on top of my five, because of the neglect and abuse they suffered. We were asked to take several more because we were considered one of the few safe homes in the extended family. Unfortunately, when we couldn’t take in any more children, that didn’t mean they were going to find another safe home. That’s not how ICWA works. When a safe relative’s home can’t be found, less safe homes are considered. Indian kids are not getting the protection that other children get.
Severe drug and alcohol abuse is rampant on many reservations. Let’s stop pretending. By glossing over reality, helpless children are being subjected to further, extended abuse and neglect. It is not racist to remove children from abusive and neglectful homes and place them somewhere safe and nurturing.
THIS IS WHY we began this Petition:
Read between NPR’s lines. There appears an attempt to paint the picture of a helpless group of people with almost every sentence. Take for instance the statement; “There’s only electricity when it’s possible to pay the bill” – as if that wasn’t true for every family in the United States. What I am saying is, 1) Everyone in America needs to pay their bill in order to keep the lights on, and 2) Electricity is available on this reservation. The sentence is worded to give the impression that utilities are woefully intermittent in South Dakota.
In defense of one of the parents in trouble, NPR stated,
“…tribal courts can be over-run, under funded and operated only part time.” That may be true, but it is tribal government – under the claim of sovereignty – that is responsible for making tribal courts work, not federal or state government.
As further evidence of the series being one-sided, the article points out that “…two South Dakota judges, two lawyers and a dozen tribal advocates told NPR that state law doesn’t apply. Federal law says tribes are sovereign. The experts say a state official can’t drive off with an Indian child from Crow Creek any more than a Crow Creek official could drive off with a child from Rapid City.” (Tell this to the birth father in Texas whose child was taken by tribal officials from Arizona three years ago.)
So…NPR found less than two dozen or so officials in South Dakota who think that placing a child of heritage into a non-tribal home is illegal. Obviously, there are many more in SD who view it differently. Thankfully, there are some who realize that the best interest of children is far more important than playing politics.
NPR even quoted, then discounted, a tribal ICWA worker stating,
“I get along real good with the state and I have a good rapport with them…I’m satisfied.”
NPR also brings up the memories of the old border school system, as if it has relevance to the current need to protect children. Yes, taking children years ago for no good cause from the families they knew and loved was wrong. And it is just as wrong to do it today – taking children from homes they know and love and forcing them to live with strangers on reservations.
It is also time to stop painting every attempt at Child Protection as something malicious. Even the boarding school system wasn’t inherently malicious. David Tickerhoof, who NPR identified as the current pastor at Saint Paul’s Church, is quoted in the article saying,
“There had to be a pretty stringent discipline system…The goal wasn’t to make them non-Indian; the effort was to really help them stand as an equal in the job environment and to do that they had to be able to communicate in the dominant society.”
Further, some parents wanted the boarding schools. The NPR article itself relates one story, saying;
“She had been sent away when she was 5-years-old. Her mother couldn’t afford to provide for her or her sister. So, she enrolled them at Saint Paul’s Indian Mission”
The mother enrolled the children. Neither the state nor the mission stole them, yet, the article goes on to intimate that the mission had done something wrong in taking the two children in.
Finally, a NPR statement which I would like to see their documentation for:
“…NPR’s investigation shows that even Native American children who grow up to become foster care success stories, living happy, productive lives, say the loss of their culture and identities leaves a deep hole they spend years trying hopelessly to fill.”
Hopelessly. Meaning – no hope. For years wandering, disabled, half a person… yet, living happy, productive lives. Make up your mind, NPR.
How many people did they interview in order to draw that conclusion? Yes, adoptive children of all heritages have a sense of loss in relation to birth family. A couple of the children I raised felt this as well. It is natural. Yet, we never saw any of the children we raised pine for a heritage, whether it be their Native heritage, or Jewish, German or Irish heritage.
Suffice it to say that every human on earth has nostalgia in their heart to one extent or another, some more than others. People of every heritage have amongst them those who grieve for what was, others who yearn for what might be, and still others who are simply content with what is That’s life. Let’s move on.
Next, there’s the bonus money:
“…according to federal records, if the child has ‘special needs,’ a state can get as much as $12,000,” and “…A decade ago, South Dakota designated all Native American children ‘special needs,’ which means Native American children who are permanently removed from their homes are worth more financially to the state than other children.”
If this is true, it is just plain sick and wrong and needs to be one of the first things the South Dakota legislature changes this next session. I am not saying “maybe.” I am saying CHANGE IT. It is pure racism – plain and simple. Excuse me? Labeling a child as ‘special needs’ just because of their heritage? Nothing could be more degrading and despicable. This is the appalling outcome of the nauseating notion that persons of tribal heritage are somehow different from other people.
Further, if that was truly a factor in the foster care/adoption rate in South Dakota, throw the book at all those responsible and put an end to the sick game.
But while it is quite provocative to point out the money per head that the state gets for the children, NPR totally left out the fact that Tribal government itself gets more money per head for our children. Sometimes, tribal governments need members to be living on the reservation in order for them to receive the funds; other times they are able to use families in their head count of enrolled members whether or not the family lives on the reservation or uses tribal entitlement programs.
According to the “Tribal Complete Count Committee Handbook” published by United States Census 2000, D-3289 (4-99):
“The programs serving tribal residents …which use Federal funding based on population statistics—[include]: Johnson O’Malley, Headstart, Home Energy Assistance, Housing and Urban Development programs, etc…”The Federal government uses census data to allocate funds to tribal, state, and local governments for a wide range of programs.”
According to Jack C. Jackson, Jr., Director of Governmental Affairs, National Congress of American Indians, Statement on the importance of an accurate census to American Indians and Alaska Natives, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 1999:
“….A significant portion of this federal aid is based on the information collected in the census. Federal programs that distribute aid to American Indians and Alaska Natives based in whole or in part on census data include the Job Training Partnership Act, Grants to Local Education Agencies for Indian Education, Special Programs for the Aging, and Family Violence Prevention and Services.”
According to Administration For Children and Families, (ACF) U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, May 9, 2007, Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance:
“Tribal Child Counts …For funds that become available in FY 2008, ACF will calculate grant awards based on the number of children under age 13. A Tribe must submit a self-certified Child Count Declaration for children under age 13 (not age 13 and under), in order to receive FY 2008 CCDF funds.”
How much money are we talking about? Billions.
From Indianz.com, “House panel boosts funds for Indian Programs”, Monday, June 11, 2007. Accessed Aug. 30, 2007 –
At a markup on Thursday, the committee approved 5.7 billion for Indian programs at the Interior Department and related agencies, including the Indian Health Service…. The bill “honors our obligations to Native American communities, making investments into better education and healthcare,” the committee said of the overall $27.6 billion package, an increase of 4.3 percent over current levels.”
And that was 2007. Yet NPR quotes a tribal social worker for the Pine Ridge reservation, Juanita Sherick, saying, in reference to State Social Workers,
“They make a living off of our children…”
…while failing to note that she, herself, is also making a living off of enrollable children.
What to do then?
Tribal social worker, Juanita Sherick, is further quoted saying,
“Give the children back to their relatives, because the creator gave those children to those families…Who has any right to take them away from those families?”
I agree with Juanita. The birth families, if they are fit, should have more authority than either government. That is why ICWA is unconstitutional. Tribal government does not own our children. As Juanita said – “give the children back” to their families.
Allow the families, if they are fit, to decide who they want to adopt their children, and what type of lifestyle they want their children to have. We have seen tribal governments fight for children with less than 1-2% heritage – children with absolutely no connection to the reservation. We can think of no other reason for tribal governments to be doing this than for money. Although most everyone will admit that it is wrong to treat children this way, under the ICWA, it is currently legal.
Sherick went on,
“Why send a private agency onto our reservation? [Children’s Home] is not calling us to request permission to come onto the reservation to do these home studies.”
NPR then states,
“Mendoza says her agency would do the work for free. They know the families, they know the homes.”
If it is true tribal agencies are interested in doing contractible work for free, this is a wonderful idea. While in our own family’s case tribal social workers weren’t willing to come and do proper home studies, the willingness of other tribal agencies to do so is wonderful.
The NPR writers add,
“across the state, grandmothers, aunts and uncles, family and tribal members would have cared for Brianna — and hundreds of other Native American children like her. They would have done so for free, keeping them close to their tribes and culture like federal law intended.”
If what NPR states is true – and I pray that it is – I am all for developing a program to do just that. Willing families would, of course, sign statements that they will not apply for or accept any welfare or entitlement funding for these children, whether through the federal or tribal government (which is still federal funds). But…NPR wouldn’t be trying to bluff us with that statement, right? There truly are enough homes willing to take in hundreds of children for free, right?
Now I have a story of my own to tell about an adoptive mother and her little girl. On Saturday, Nov. 19, the mother posted to Facebook,
“It’s nothing short of a miracle that we got her back.”
My Lord! She wrote this EXACTLY A YEAR from when she had first written us on Saturday, Nov. 20 – saying,
“They just took my baby after 3 years…her sobbing is forever etched in my soul.”
The courts had determined that because the little girl had some Indian heritage, ICWA applied and she had to go stay with a family she had knew nothing about.
For five months this mother suffered the loss daily, until April 13th, when they got a call from Social Services to come and get their little girl right away. There was a problem and she had to be moved immediately from the home she had been placed in. It was only supposed to be for a couple days, until Social Services could find another placement, but these parents were just glad to be able to see her and hold her for as long as they were allowed.
They left right away, driving a couple hours to get her. When she saw them, she ran into their arms and said she was ready to go “home” – “Can I go home?” she asked – Adoptive mom wept – but daughter held her tears until after they had left the building, then wept freely. The people she had been with had told there were monsters in the closet who would come eat her if she cried.
Fortunately, she wasn’t physically hurt during the five months. But she was, indeed, emotionally traumatized. She was NOT okay. She had been told her that her adoptive parents were wolves and would eat her, and she reported that she had been locked in a storage shed. She was only three so it’s still hard to say what actually happened, but it is known that things were not well – as evidenced by the emergency request by social services for the adoptive parents to go after her.
Social Services never took her back, and on Friday, Nov. 18, this family finalized the adoption of their little girl after having lost her exactly a year earlier to ICWA. They are now a permanent family.
The point? Let’s start to recognize that the Indian Child Welfare Act does NOT ensure the best interest of every child with heritage – nor protect them. While some families prefer and need to stay together on the reservation, others do not. Let us recognize that we must not be so prejudice as to assume that all children and families want the same things, simply because they have a certain heritage. Even children and families with 100% blood quantum are not always interested in remaining within the reservation system. Let us start to recognize that all citizens of the United States are guaranteed certain rights under the constitution. Let us also recognize that the safety of children, no matter what their heritage, is the first and most important consideration. If there is no safe home amongst relatives, they should not be placed in a relative’s home.
A commenter to the online article, Slandering the Red States, Part I, by John Hinderaker in Media Bias Nov. 6, 2011, wrote; …
“The whole premise of indians being kidnapped and ‘ruined’ because they are placed with white parents is racist to the core. Can you imagine a similar story about white kids that have a black or Latino dark skinned foster parent being robbed of their “cultural heritage”? Racism is racism and the NPR piece is noting but anti-white racism.”
So True.
Please help
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This is a brief version of our story.
3 years ago, the day before Thanksgiving we met the most beautiful child. He was in a foster home because his birth mother had left him at 3 months at the home of who she thought was his birth father. That young man was found not to be the birth father when the County stepped in to provide services. They removed Tyler from this man’s home (this young man lived with his mother). The man who raised him from 3 months to 8 months was found to be violent and aggressive and unfortunately is back in Tyler’s life. (more on that).
We had finished the paperwork and homestudy and were looking to adopt a Native American child as I am Native American myself. So my tribe called and said they had an 11 month boy who was ready to be adopted. We wanted a child that needed a home. We had no idea what would happen next.
The mother resurfaced to have her 3rd child and the county made her have visitations with Tyler. He had no idea who she was and it was difficult but she soon gave up the visits and canceled and eventually did not even show up for visiting. She has never said she wanted him back.
ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Law) is meant to protect children especially before there were laws to protect mothers and babies before 1973. But unfortunately the ICWA law is phrased to protect the tribes and not the children. This is the law that we are going to Washington D.C. to lobby to get changed to protect children and not tribes.
The birth mother has a relative (Great-Half Aunt) and this relative has never been in her life but became involved in this particular ‘family’ to protect the yet unproven birth father. This relative’s husband is the Tribal Chairman and she abused the power of the tribe to take these children back and to reunify the birth mother with her 3 children. We started our legal battles in February 2008 and they continue today. There is no one and nothing we have found we can do but try and help him through appealing court decisions.
We had Tyler in our home for 5 months when on a Friday in May, 2008 at 9pm the relative and a social worker from the tribe appeared at our door step with the police to take our little guy away. Our lawyer fought to stop them but no one wanted to interpret tribal law vs. State law and we were forced to turn him over in his pajamas to these people.
A month later when we were trying to stay in contact the relative said we could visit him. When we went to visit she said they could not control him and the mother wasn’t wanting to raise her children and asked if we would take him back. We visited for the weekend and arranged to take him back in June , 2008. We were no longer the Foster parents we just had a tribal court order saying he was placed with us.
We spent the next 6 months fighting to keep him and protect him. We followed all the requests the tribe made of us to have him visit. The birth mother was not around she had taken off and not returned to the tribe. During this time she became pregnant with her 4th child in 4 years and committed a felony.
Unfortunately in December, 2008 the tribal court (which if you don’t know consists of a judge appointed by the Tribal Chairman who does not need any legal background or even any schooling beyond a high school diploma to be a judge) ruled in favor of the relative and said that our Tyler should be reunited with his 8 day clean mother.
Two days after Christmas, they came on Saturday morning and took him away. He had just celebrated his second birthday and his second Christmas with our family in Colorado. The screams as they took him away will not go away. I hear them everyday and I try to put them out of my head but still each day I hear him scream “No, Mama, No!” I couldn’t protect him. And I am a member of this tribe. The Tribal Chairman is my first cousin (his mother and my father are brother and sister). But he is married to the woman who started this.
Where we are today 2 years later: The birth mother is in prison and has been since last December 2009. The man that the County took Tyler from was the boyfriend when the mother was arrested last year so the tribe granted him guardianship of 3 of the 4 children. He is not Tyler’s birth father, he is not a relative and he is NOT Native American. He is also participating in illegal activities and the situation is not good for any of the children.
We are fighting to appeal the rulings. We have been fighting ever since. Unfortunately Tribal Sovereignty allows the Tribe to do what they want and not look out for the children. We were granted liberal and reasonable visitations. Because he wants to go home and hung on for a very long time asking to go home so they have not granted us visitations. We have seen him once in two years. Last October 26 at a McDonald’s. When I picked him up and told him I loved him he said “I wub you.” That is all I have left.
Newest Updates:
Birth Mother has been released to tribal custody for extensive monitoring from the State Prison. Somewhere around Christmas she was sent back up to the reservation.
I have also contacted the man who has been watching our Tyler (who is not the father). He and I talked for almost 20 minutes about 3 weeks ago. He was going to let us see Tyler but then the birth mother was released and she is still having issues related to her Aunt who started this process who told her to be fearful of us trying to take him. So unfortunately, despite my attempt to talk to him, we did not get to see Tyler.
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Many Families of American Indian Heritage do NOT want their children raised on or near Reservations. Ours is one of them. Here are the facts.
– Federal statistics have shown that for years that children that live on or near reservations die at about twice the national rate. Quoted in a Dec. 7th edition of the Oregonian, Jon Perez, a director of behavioral health at the federal Indian Health Service, stated, “What you have are developing countries right in the heart of the United States. Each has a history of neglect and a legacy of trauma that explains these disparities. We need this history not as excuses for the disparities but as a need to intervene.”
Yet, Federal Indian policy and tribal governments keep telling everyone that the reservations are the best places for children of tribal heritage, and mandates that tribal government has juridiction over children in cases where they are in need of care. Why? Are their lives less important than other children’s?
The Minneapolis Star and Tribune, on April 25, 2004, offered the following statistics for one Reservation county:
*Cass County, where most of the reservation’s people live, ranked last among 77 Minnesota counties in a 1999 government study that measured the health and safety of children.
*In 2002, Cass County had the state’s highest percentage of children living in foster homes and other county-supervised care. Most of them were Indians from the reservation, taken away from their parents, or given up by them, because of abuse, neglect or delinquency.
*A statewide study of ninth-graders in the mid-1990s found that Cass County had the highest rate of heavy drug and alcohol use and the highest.
Yet, in 2009, a baby boy was taken by the government from his safe, loving adoptive home in Utah and placed into the care of this very reservation. Why? Who benefited from that move? Certainly not the little boy!
And if a child’s heritage is as important as tribal governments keep claiming it is, why does the federal government believe that only a child’s tribal heritage is important? Most enrollable children are less than 50% Indian heritage! Why does the tribe have a right to interfere with children that are living in homes that better reflect their full heritage?
The statistics, after ten years, must be even greater now for interracial marriage…and interracial co-habitation and interracial flings….
But this isn’t about drawing a line to decide how much pedigree is necessary for tribal government to lay claim in a child. Any American citizen, no matter what percentage of tribal heritage, has a right to say “no” and choose not to be involved in the reservation system. Blood Quantum should not rob anyone of that right.
Roland John Morris, (passed away) was 100% Minnesota Chippewa, but did NOT believe in the Reservation system or federal Indian policy. He believed the reservation is killing people, emotionally, spiritually, and through that – physically. Drug addiction, alcoholism, abuse, etc.
He believed Men need to feel needed by their families, and as long as government taking care of everyone – helplessness and despair reign.
He DID fight system politically. He spoke out against federal Indian policy, the reservation system, and in particular, the Indian Child Welfare Act. For that, he was called a racist.
– The 2000 census told us that there were 4,119,301 American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States and 562 federally funded tribes. Approximately 75% live outside the reservation, with about 55% residing in metropolitan areas. Only about 25% of tribal members live on reservations. Most have chosen to leave.
– Further, reservations are not populated by just tribal members. As of the 2000 Census, as much as 45% of reservation residents are non-Indian. In fact, on 30% of the reservations, the number of non-members is equal to or greater than the number of tribal members. The incidence of inter-racial marriage is high. The Montana Supreme Court, in Skillen v. Menz, wrote, “…interracial marriages are a fact of life, and, as with other marriages, so are interracial divorces and custody disputes over the children of those marriages.
The Indian Child Welfare Act is a travesty of Justice and needs to be rescinded.
Visit Independent Indian Press – Conservative tribal members, speaking their minds
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Children messed up by drugs and alcohol need a safe, stable, therapeutic home – The LAST thing they need is placement back into the very garbage that they came out of.
Two days ago I sat in the front seat of an ambulance transporting my 14-year old, unresponsive “son” (placed by ICWA) to the ER. His blood alcohol level was .35.
We were not a bad home. But we were not a therapeutic home. The four children placed with us thirteen years ago, solely because my husband was their grandfather, did not get what they needed.
We were a good home, but we were not educated in the needs of the kids and were never truly inspected by Leech Lake or any other social service. We could have done anything and no one would have known or cared. All they cared about was that we met the criteria for an ICWA placement. And under that single criterion, kids are continually being placed into horrible situations with the blessing of both the federal and tribal governments. And not just kids of tribal heritage – but children of every heritage, because a child doesn’t need to be 100% tribal to for a tribe to have jurisdiction over them through ICWA. Most tribes require only 1/4 blood quantum, meaning the child has an even greater heritage somewhere else. Some tribes require even less to claim a child. For example, a child in Texas has less than 2% tribal heritage, but the tribe is trying to claim him.
But as I said, the LAST thing kids of ANY heritage need is placement back into the very garbage that they came out of. Children messed up by drugs and alcohol need a safe, stable, therapeutic home – heritage isn’t even an issue.
The bottom line is that this isn’t just about keeping them off the Rez. We don’t live on the Rez. It’s about placing them in an appropriate home.
I was too overwhelmed – with five birth children and these four legal custody, as well as my husband dying of cancer. Any sane social service person should have seen that this can’t work. But they didn’t care. And I couldn’t bring myself to give up and have them sent to Cass Lake. I’ve seen how kids are being raised there with our relatives. That place is absolutely horrid and dangerous for children. I could not kick them out of my home and make them live there. So I kept them and ended up doing an inadequate job, not only for the four, but for my birth children and husband as well.
With diagnosis’ of FAS, ADHD, Attachment Disorders and/or Oppositional Disorders, these kids – from the very beginning – needed more help than I could give.
After having the two oldest turn 18 and proceed into the same dysfunctional lifestyle that we had supposedly rescued them from, I am today trying to get the third one into some type of therapeutic treatment. Simply taking them out of the circumstances – or even showing them a totally different way to live – didn’t change the way their bodies, already affected by alcohol, worked.
Further – the tribe’s choice exposed my birth children to harm. A truth I am only in the last few weeks realizing – is that the oldest of the four legal custody, now 20 yrs, old – is a con man. We had various struggles with him through his teen age years, but he was so charming and always seemed so cooperative, even when it came to discipline. Now I am finding out all the damage that had been done. Several of my birth children were affected – very negatively. He encouraged at least five of the other children to drink and or smoke weed with him – one of the kids being as young as ten when this happened.
I am only now thinking – We know that Al-anon exists because of the tremendous emotional difficulties of living with an alcoholic. Why did we not consider this in terms of the birth children living with FAS in all four?
We were not prepared to deal with the many issues. I neglected my own children in many ways. I was focused so much on correcting the behavior of the four that I totally missed so much that was going on with my own. I put my birth children in danger. This was not an appropriate home. The only reason they were placed here was because of ICWA. At the time were the healthiest part of the extended family that there was. We were the only healthy family within the extended family.
At least at the time. I no longer categorize us as a healthy family.
Children messed up by drugs and alcohol need safe, stable, therapeutic homes. It’s the only chance they have. Anything less, and they will not be able to cope any better than their parents did. Fifteen years later, you will have another generation of babies needing special care.
Stop it now. Let the kids get real help.
Stop listening to most of the tribal governments on this issue. They get more money from the federal government per head. This is not really about the best interest of kids, no matter what they try to claim. They are all about money and control. The kids are pawns.
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Make me sick. A stupid, selfish mother suffocated her baby, not once, but twice, because she didn’t want to take care of him. Forget any of the excuses she or the tribe tries to give for what happened. This horrible woman purposeflully suffocated her baby – twice.
Coincidentally, her little baby has the same name as my 2-year old grandson; Ty.
Now the tribal government is standing up and using this poor baby for another propoganda opportunity. Tribal Gov. Ivan Pino said the tribe wants baby Ty’s body to be returned to the pueblo for burial. People living near the park raised about $4,000 for a funeral for the boy, but he says, “Let the Pueblo of Zia go through its healing process right now. Give us the respect to go through our mourning at this point.”
Now I’m going to throw up. The people living near the park cared enough to raise $4000 from their own pockets, and were interested in mourning the little boy as a community – which would include everyone and anyone that cared to show up. The tribe, on the other hand, will use government money for the burial, and are trying to exclude people that care. Why does Gov. Ivan Pino not want anyone else around to mourn the baby? What’s up with that? I’ve been to plenty of tribal funerals. I’ve never heard of people being excluded before.
And give them respect to bury the baby? Why? Where were they when the little boy was homeless? What are they currently doing about any of the other homeless children enrollable with their tribe? Do they even keep track of them? What about the ones that are being abused? Or the children that are left alone all night while their parents are partying?
I once chased a guy off a ten-year old girl while I was visiting on one rez. I’ve found many children in many horrible situations. What do I see the tribe doing about it? Nothing. Why should tribes that turn their backs on enrollable children be given any kind of respect?
Claiming to want “respect to go through our mourning” is just another tribal government power push, and it has nothing at all to do with actually mourning this little guy. It’s all about showing who’s the boss – who’s in control again. They are in control, but that doesn’t mean that they are doing anything with that control to actually help their membership.
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Several of the tribes don’t really care whether they place the kids in bad homes. They do it all the time.
You can’t tell me any different – I’ve seen it first hand. I wouldn’t leave my dog in some of the homes I’ve seen the tribe place children in.
Further, they placed four children with us for a good year or more before they bothered to come out and do a home visit. They never once even spoke to us prior to or during the interim before that one visit. They didn’t bother to ask any other social services to check on us. They had no clue how we were handling the kids, and they really didn’t care.
Finally, they came out for a visit. The two social workers flew in because we were in a different state. They were supposed to be there for a two day visit. They spent about an hour or so with us. We talked in the Upholstery shop. They walked through the first floor of our apartment. Didn’t look at any bedrooms. Didn’t talk to any kids. Then they asked us where to go in the valley for sight seeing. That was the last we saw of them for that two day visit.
And we’ve never had a social worker come visit again. That was 12 years ago. We still have two of the kids in our home, and the tribe still has no clue how we’re handling them.
Fortunately, we are a good home. But I have seen so many bad homes in our extended family that it’s sickening.
Those that say that kids of heritage are better off within the tribal system simply because they have a small amount of heritage, or even if they are 100% tribal, are nothing but racists more concerned about tribal funds then they are about the kids.
And that’s reality.
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