Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 5

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

5 

Syllabus 

the “active efforts” requirement in private suits too.  That is consistent 
with ICWA’s findings, which describe the role that both public and pri-
vate  actors  played  in  the  unjust  separation  of  Indian  children  from 
their families and tribes.  §1901.  Given all this, it is implausible that
§1912(d) is directed primarily, much less exclusively, at the States.   
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 sov-
ereign function of protecting the health and safety of children within 
its borders.”  Brief for Petitioner Texas 66.  This argument is presum-
ably directed at situations in which only the State can rescue a child 
from neglectful parents.  But the State is not necessarily the only op-
tion 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)  re-
quires of a State in that context.  Petitioners have therefore failed to 
show that the “active efforts” requirement commands the States to de-
ploy 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 provi-
sions, 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 agen-
cies to perform a “diligent search” for placements that satisfy ICWA’s 
hierarchy.  Just as Congress cannot compel state officials to search da-
tabases 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  place-
ment.  Adoptive  Couple  v.  Baby  Girl,  570  U. S.  637,  654.  So,  as  it 
stands, petitioners assert an anticommandeering challenge to a provi-
sion that does not command state agencies to do anything. 

State  courts  are  a  different  matter.    ICWA  indisputably  requires