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HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

Syllabus 

likely to suffer “serious emotional or physical damage” if the parent or 
Indian custodian retains custody.  §§1912(d), (e).  Even for voluntary 
proceedings, a biological parent who gives up an Indian child cannot 
necessarily choose the child’s foster or adoptive parents.  The child’s 
tribe has “a right to intervene at any point in [a] proceeding” to place
a child in foster care or terminate parental rights, as well as a right to
collaterally  attack  the  state  court’s  custody  decree.    §§1911(c),  1914. 
The tribe thus can sometimes enforce ICWA’s placement preferences
against  the  wishes  of  one  or  both  biological  parents,  even  after  the
child is living with a new family.  Finally, the States must keep certain 
records related to child placements, see §1915(e), and transmit to the
Secretary of the Interior all final adoption decrees and other specified 
information, see §1951(a). 

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 al-
lows tribes to alter the prioritization order—on the ground that it vio-
lates the nondelegation doctrine.

The  District  Court  granted  petitioners’  motion  for  summary  judg-
ment on their constitutional claims, and the en banc Fifth Circuit af-
firmed 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 place-
ment 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 ba-
sis  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”  re-
quirement, §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 chal-
lenged  provisions  (§1912(a)’s  notice  requirement,  §1915(a)  and 
§1915(b)’s  placement  preferences,  and  §1951(a)’s  recordkeeping  re-
quirement), the Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s holding that
these requirements violate the Tenth Amendment.