Updated Guidelines Issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Indian Child Welfare Act

For those who have been following the effects on the Indian Child Welfare Act ( ICWA) following the 2013 decision by the US Supreme Court in the case of Adoptive Couple v Baby Girl, there is a glimmer of good news. A previous blogpost (here) commenting on this decision noted that it upheld the spirit if not the letter of the Existing Indian Family doctrine, a judicially created doctrine that allowed judges to determine that they would not apply ICWA if the judge had made a determination that the child concerned did not have requisite ( as decided by the judge) cultural ties to their indigenous heritage.

On February 25, 2015, new Guidelines on the implementation of ICWA went into effect. The Guidelines were issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is the first time since 1979 that Guidelines on ICWA have been updated. There are many praise-worthy elements in the new Guidelines which will be examined in future blog posts. However, given the commentary in the previous blog post about the effect of the US Supreme Court decision on the Existing Indian Family Doctrine, it is important to note that the EIF doctrine is specifically addressed in these Guidelines. The Guidelines specifically state that “Section A ( of the Guidelines) is intended to make clear that there is no existing Indian family (EIF) exception to application of ICWA… The Department agrees with the States that have concluded that there is no existing Indian family exception to the application of ICWA.” This is certainly good news, however long overdue.

Post written by Sarah Sargent.