M. G. J. v. Oregon Department of Human Services, et al.
DueProcess Privacy
Does the Supremacy Clause preclude a state from enacting a state law to determine the foster care or adoptive placement of an Indian child?
1. This Court recently explained that, “In the usual course, state courts apply state law when placing children in foster or adoptive homes,” however “when the child is an Indian, a federal statute—the Indian Child Welfare Act—governs.” Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 US 255, 263-64 (2023). Does the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, preclude a state from enacting a state law to determine the foster care or adoptive placement of an Indian child? 2. Under the Oregon Indian Child Welfare Act, the Oregon juvenile court may change the permanency plan for a dependent Oregon Indian child to Tribal Customary Adoption if the Oregon Indian child’s tribe consents to the Oregon juvenile court doing so. Thereafter, the Oregon Indian child’s tribe must decide the terms of the Tribal Customary Adoption by employing its own procedures (or simply by decree) and must reduce those determinations to writing in the form of a proposed order or judgment. The Oregon Indian Child Welfare Act then requires the Oregon juvenile court to accept the tribe’s proposed order or judgment—without regard to whether the parents of the Indian child were provided any procedural protections at all—and requires the Oregon juvenile court to sign an Oregon adoption judgment and enter the Oregon adoption judgment in the Oregon juvenile court’s case register. When the terms of the tribe’s Tribal Customary Adoption order or judgment include changing the child’s name and reserving for the parent only the single “right” to request an annual ii visit be granted at the sole discretion of the adoptive parent, does the Tribal Customary Adoption provision of the Oregon Indian Child Welfare Act violate both the parent’s due process rights and ICWA?