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Page Number: 4

4 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

Syllabus 

Petitioners also assert that ICWA takes the “commerce” out of the In-
dian Commerce Clause because “children are not commodities that can 
be traded.”  Brief for Individual Petitioners 16.  This point, while rhe-
torically powerful, ignores the Court’s precedent interpreting the In-
dian Commerce Clause to encompass not only trade but also other In-
dian affairs.  Petitioners next argue that ICWA cannot be authorized 
by  principles  inherent  in  the  Constitution’s  structure  because  those 
principles  “extend,  at  most,  to  matters  of  war  and  peace.”    Brief  for 
Petitioner Texas 28.  Again, petitioners make no argument that takes 
this Court’s cases on their own terms.  The Court has referred gener-
ally to the powers “necessarily inherent in any Federal Government” 
and has offered non-military examples, such as “creating departments
of Indian affairs.”  Lara, 541 U. S., at 201–202.  Petitioners next ob-
serve  that  ICWA  does  not  implement  a  federal  treaty,  but  Congress
did not purport to enact ICWA pursuant to its treaty power and the 
Fifth Circuit did not uphold ICWA on that rationale.  Finally, petition-
ers turn to criticizing this Court’s precedent as inconsistent with the 
Constitution’s  original  meaning,  but  they  neither  ask  the  Court  to 
overrule the precedent they criticize nor try to reconcile their approach
with it.  If there are arguments that ICWA exceeds Congress’s author-
ity as precedent stands today, petitioners do not make them here.  Pp.
15–17. 

2. Petitioners’ anticommandeering challenges, which address three

categories of ICWA provisions, are rejected.  Pp. 18–29.

(a) First, petitioners challenge certain requirements that apply in 
involuntary proceedings to place a child in foster care or terminate pa-
rental  rights,  focusing  on  the  requirement  that  an  initiating  party 
demonstrate  “active  efforts”  to  keep  the  Indian  family  together. 
§1912(d).    Petitioners  contend  this  subsection  directs  state  and  local 
agencies  to  provide  extensive  services  to  the  parents  of  Indian  chil-
dren,  even  though  it  is  well  established  that  the  Tenth  Amendment 
bars Congress from “command[ing] the States’ officers, or those of their 
political  subdivisions,  to  administer  or  enforce  a  federal  regulatory 
program.”    Printz  v.  United  States,  521  U. S.  898,  935.    To  succeed, 
petitioners must show that §1912(d) harnesses a State’s legislative or 
executive authority.  But the provision applies to “any party” who ini-
tiates an involuntary proceeding, thus sweeping in private individuals 
and  agencies  as  well  as  government  entities.    A  demand  that  either 
public or private actors can satisfy is unlikely to require the use of sov-
ereign power.  Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn., 584 U. S. 
___, ___–___.  Petitioners nonetheless insist that States institute the 
vast  majority  of  involuntary  proceedings.    But  examples  of  private
suits are not hard to find.  And while petitioners treat “active efforts”
as synonymous with “government programs,” state courts have applied