# Haaland v. Brackeen

Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
HAALAND, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, ET AL. v. BRACKEEN ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT No. 21–376. Argued November 9, 2022—Decided June 15, 2023
This case arises from three separate child custody proceedings governed by the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a federal statute that aims to keep Indian children connected to Indian families. ICWA governs state court adoption and foster care proceedings involving Indian children. Among other things, the Act requires placement of an Indian child according to the Act’s hierarchical preferences, unless the state court finds “good cause” to depart from them. 25 U. S. C. §§1915(a), (b). Under those preferences, Indian families or institutions from any tribe (not just the tribe to which the child has a tie) outrank unrelated non-Indians or non-Indian institutions. Further, the child’s tribe may pass a resolution altering the prioritization order. §1915(c). The preferences of the Indian child or her parent generally cannot trump those set by statute or tribal resolution.
Petitioners—a birth mother, foster and adoptive parents, and the State of Texas—filed this suit in federal court against the United States and other federal parties. Several Indian Tribes intervened to defend the law alongside the federal parties. Petitioners challenged ICWA as unconstitutional on multiple grounds. They asserted that Congress lacks authority to enact ICWA and that several of ICWA’s requirements violate the anticommandeering principle of the Tenth Amendment. They argued that ICWA employs racial classifications that unlawfully hinder non-Indian families from fostering or adopting Indian children. And they challenged §1915(c)—the provision that allows tribes to alter the prioritization order—on the ground that it violates the nondelegation doctrine.
The District Court granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment on their constitutional claims, and the en banc Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The Fifth Circuit concluded that ICWA does not exceed Congress’s legislative power, that §1915(c) does not violate the nondelegation doctrine, and that some of ICWA’s placement preferences satisfy the guarantee of equal protection. The Fifth Circuit was evenly divided as to whether ICWA’s other preferences—those prioritizing “other Indian families” and “Indian foster home[s]” over non-Indian families—unconstitutionally discriminate on the basis of race, and thus affirmed the District Court’s ruling that these preferences are unconstitutional. As to petitioners’ Tenth Amendment arguments, the Fifth Circuit held that §1912(d)’s “active efforts” requirement, §1912(e)’s and §1912(f)’s expert witness requirements, and §1915(e)’s recordkeeping requirement unconstitutionally commandeer the States. And because it divided evenly with respect to other challenged provisions (§1912(a)’s notice requirement, §1915(a) and §1915(b)’s placement preferences, and §1951(a)’s recordkeeping requirement), the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s holding that these requirements violate the Tenth Amendment.
Held:
1. The Court declines to disturb the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that ICWA is consistent with Congress’s Article I authority. Pp. 10–17.
(a) The Court has characterized Congress’s power to legislate with respect to the Indian tribes as “plenary and exclusive,” United States v. Lara, 541 U. S. 193, 200, superseding both tribal and state authority, Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49, 56. The Court has traced that power to multiple sources. First, the Indian Commerce Clause authorizes Congress “[t]o regulate Commerce … with the Indian Tribes,” U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 3, and the Court has interpreted the Indian Commerce Clause to reach not only trade, but also certain “Indian affairs,” Cotton Petroleum Corp. v. New Mexico, 490 U. S. 163, 192. The Treaty Clause provides a second source of power. The treaty power “does not literally authorize Congress to act legislatively,” since it is housed in Article II, but “treaties made pursuant to that power can authorize Congress to deal with ‘matters’ with which otherwise ‘Congress could not deal.’ ” Lara, 541 U. S., at 201. Also, principles inherent in the Constitution’s structure may empower Congress to act in the field of Indian affairs. See Morton v. Mancari, 417 U. S. 535, 551–552. Finally, the “trust relationship between the United States and the Indian people” informs the exercise of legislative power. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U. S. 206, 225–226. In sum, Congress’s power to legislate with respect to Indians is well established and broad, but it is not unbounded. It is plenary within its sphere, but even a sizeable sphere has borders. Pp. 10–14.
(b) Petitioners contend that ICWA impermissibly treads on the States’ traditional authority over family law. But when Congress validly legislates pursuant to its Article I powers, the Court “has not hesitated” to find conflicting state family law preempted, “[n]otwithstanding the limited application of federal law in the field of domestic relations generally.” Ridgway v. Ridgway, 454 U. S. 46, 54. And the Court has recognized Congress’s power to displace the jurisdiction of state courts in adoption proceedings involving Indian children. Fisher v. District Court of Sixteenth Judicial Dist. of Mont., 424 U. S. 382, 390 (per curiam). Pp. 14–15.
2. Petitioners’ anticommandeering challenges, which address three categories of ICWA provisions, are rejected. Pp. 18–29.
Legislation that applies “evenhandedly” to state and private actors does not typically implicate the Tenth Amendment. Murphy, 584 U. S., at ___. Petitioners would distinguish the Court’s precedents so holding on the grounds that those cases addressed laws regulating a State’s commercial activity, while ICWA regulates a State’s “core sovereign function of protecting the health and safety of children within its borders.” Brief for Petitioner Texas 66. This argument is presumably directed at situations in which only the State can rescue a child from neglectful parents. But the State is not necessarily the only option for rescue, and §1912(d) applies to other types of proceedings too. Petitioners do not distinguish between these varied situations, much less isolate a domain in which only the State can act. If there is a core of involuntary proceedings committed exclusively to the sovereign, Texas neither identifies its contours nor explains what §1912(d) requires of a State in that context. Petitioners have therefore failed to show that the “active efforts” requirement commands the States to deploy their executive or legislative power to implement federal Indian policy. And as for petitioners’ challenges to other provisions of §1912—the notice requirement, expert witness requirement, and evidentiary standards—the Court doubts that requirements placed on a State as litigant implicate the Tenth Amendment. But regardless, these provisions, like §1912(d), apply to both private and state actors, so they too pose no anticommandeering problem. Pp. 18–23.
(b) Petitioners next challenge ICWA’s placement preferences, set forth in §1915. Petitioners assert that this provision orders state agencies to perform a “diligent search” for placements that satisfy ICWA’s hierarchy. Just as Congress cannot compel state officials to search databases to determine the lawfulness of gun sales, Printz, 521 U. S., at 902–904, petitioners argue, Congress cannot compel state officials to search for a federally preferred placement. As with §1912, petitioners have not shown that the “diligent search” requirement, which applies to both private and public parties, demands the use of state sovereign authority. Moreover, §1915 does not require anyone, much less the States, to search for alternative placements; instead, the burden is on the tribe or other objecting party to produce a higher-ranked placement. Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl, 570 U. S. 637, 654. So, as it stands, petitioners assert an anticommandeering challenge to a provision that does not command state agencies to do anything.
(c) Finally, petitioners insist that Congress cannot force state courts to maintain or transmit records of custody proceedings involving Indian children. But the anticommandeering doctrine applies “distinctively” to a state court’s adjudicative responsibilities. Printz, 521 U. S., at 907. The Constitution allows Congress to require “state judges to enforce federal prescriptions, insofar as those prescriptions relat[e] to matters appropriate for the judicial power.” Ibid. (emphasis deleted). In Printz, the Court indicated that this principle may extend to tasks that are “ancillary” to a “quintessentially adjudicative task”—such as “recording, registering, and certifying” documents. Id., at 908, n. 2. Printz described numerous historical examples of Congress imposing recordkeeping and reporting requirements on state courts. These early congressional enactments demonstrate that the Constitution does not prohibit the Federal Government from imposing adjudicative tasks on state courts. Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 723. The Court now confirms what Printz suggested: Congress may impose ancillary recordkeeping requirements related to state-court proceedings without violating the Tenth Amendment. Here, ICWA’s recordkeeping requirements are comparable to the historical examples. The duties ICWA imposes are “ancillary” to the state court’s obligation to conduct child custody proceedings in compliance with ICWA. Printz, 521 U. S., at 908, n. 2. Pp. 25–29.
3. The Court does not reach the merits of petitioners’ two additional claims—an equal protection challenge to ICWA’s placement preferences and a nondelegation challenge to §1915(c), the provision allowing tribes to alter the placement preferences—because no party before the Court has standing to raise them. Pp. 29–34.
994 F. 3d 249, affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated and remanded in part.
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