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Page Number: 44.0

2 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

original balance between federal, state, and tribal powers 
I  am  pleased  to  join  the
the  Constitution  envisioned. 
Court’s opinion in full.  I write separately to add some his-
torical  context.    To  appreciate  fully  the  significance  of  to-
day’s decision requires an understanding of the long line of 
policies that drove Congress to adopt ICWA.  And to appre-
ciate why that law surely comports with the  Constitution 
requires  a  bird’s-eye  view  of  how  our  founding  document 
mediates  between  competing  federal,  state,  and  tribal
claims of sovereignty. 

I 
The Indian Child Welfare Act did not emerge from a vac-
uum.  It came as a direct response to the mass removal of
Indian children from their families during the 1950s, 1960s, 
and 1970s by state officials and private parties.  That prac-
tice, in turn, was only the latest iteration of a much older
policy of removing Indian children from their families—one 
initially  spearheaded  by  federal  officials  with  the  aid  of 
their  state  counterparts  nearly  150  years  ago.   In  all  its 
many  forms,  the  dissolution  of  the  Indian  family  has  had 
devastating  effects  on  children  and  parents  alike.    It  has 
also presented an existential threat to the continued vital-
ity  of  Tribes—something  many  federal  and  state  officials
over the years saw as a feature, not as a flaw.  This is the 
story of ICWA.  And with this story, it pays to start at the 
beginning. 

A 
When Native American Tribes were forced onto reserva-
tions, they understood that life would never again be as it 
was.  M. Fletcher & W. Singel, Indian Children and the Fed-
eral–Tribal Trust Relationship, 95 Neb. L. Rev. 885, 917–
918 (2017) (Fletcher & Singel).  Securing a foothold for their
children  in  a  rapidly  changing  world,  the  Tribes  knew,
would require schooling.  Ibid.  So as they ceded their lands,