Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-376_7l48.pdf
Page Number: 114.0

32 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

U. S., at 566; accord, La Abra Silver Mining Co. v. United 
States,  175  U. S.  423,  460  (1899);  1  W.  Blackstone,  Com-
mentaries on the Laws of England 90 (1765) (Blackstone). 
Whatever number of treaties remain in force, they cannot 
justify ICWA. 

Third, the Commerce Clause cannot support ICWA.  As 
originally understood, the Clause confers a power only over 
buying  and  selling,  not  family  law  and  child  custody  dis-
putes.  Even under our more modern, expansive precedents, 
the  Clause  is  still  limited  to  only  “economic  activity”  and 
cannot support the regulation of core domestic matters like
family  or  criminal  laws.    See  Lopez,  514  U. S.,  at  560; 
United States v. Morrison, 529 U. S. 598, 610–611 (2000); 
National  Federation  of  Independent  Business  v.  Sebelius, 
567 U. S. 519, 552 (2012) (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.); id., at 
657 (Scalia, J., dissenting).14  And even Kagama itself re-
jected the Commerce Clause as a basis for any sort of ex-
pansive power over Indian affairs.  118 U. S., at 378–379. 
Therefore, nothing about that Clause supports a law, like 
ICWA, governing child custody disputes in state courts. 

Fourth, the Federal Government’s foreign-affairs powers
cannot support ICWA.  For today’s purposes, I will assume 
that some tribes still enjoy the same sort of pre-existing sov-
ereignty and autonomy as tribes at the Founding, thereby 
establishing  the  sort  of  quasi-foreign,  government-to-gov-
ernment  relationship  that  appears  to  have  defined  those 
powers at the Founding.  Even so, the foreign-affairs pow-

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14 Respondents insist that Lopez and Morrison did not hold that family 
law is insulated from federal law.  But that misses the point.  Lopez and 
Morrison held that the Commerce Clause cannot regulate a matter like 
family law, and they did not consider whether some other constitutional
power might do so.  Cf. Hillman v. Maretta, 569 U. S. 483, 490–491, 497 
(2013) (finding pre-emption of a state statute regarding beneficiaries and
a change in marital status under a federal statute regulating the life in-
surance of federal employees).  Here, no such independent power is to be 
found.