Court Opinion

ID: 9383054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-29 15:15:40.074783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:43.356971
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                    No. 23-0078
                               Filed March 29, 2023

IN THE INTEREST OF J.C. and S.C.,
Minor Children,

K.C., Mother,
       Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

      Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Susan Cox, District

Associate Judge.

      A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights. AFFIRMED.

      Stephen K. Allison of Stephen Allison Law, PLLC, Des Moines, for appellant

mother.

      Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Anagha Dixit, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

      Richelle M. Mahaffey, Assistant State Public Defender, Des Moines,

attorney and guardian ad litem for minor children.

      Considered by Tabor, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
                                          2

AHLERS, Judge.

       The juvenile court terminated the parental rights of a mother and father to

their two children. Only the mother appeals. She raises only one issue—she

argues the State failed to make active efforts toward reunification as required by

the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). See Iowa Code § 232B.5(19) (2022). The

active-efforts requirement is unique to child-in-need-of-assistance and termination-

of-parental-rights proceedings when ICWA applies. ICWA applies when the child

or children qualify as an “Indian child” under ICWA. See id. § 232B.4(1); In re Z.K.,

973 N.W.2d 27, 28 (Iowa 2022).

       Our review of the record reveals a flaw fatal to the mother’s entire claim on

appeal—neither child qualified as an “Indian child” to trigger application of ICWA

and its active-efforts requirement. The juvenile court determined ICWA applied

because the children are eligible for membership in the Choctaw Nation of

Oklahoma through their paternal family. However, that fact alone does not qualify

the children as “Indian child[ren]” under ICWA, which the tribe pointed out in a letter

discussing the children’s eligibility for membership. See Z.K., 973 N.W.2d at 34

(“[T]he statute requires more than eligibility of tribal membership; it requires that

the child have a biological parent who is already a member.”).

       In Z.K., our supreme court made clear ICWA is triggered when a child meets

the statutory definition of an “Indian child” within federal ICWA.1 Id. That definition

“means any unmarried person who is under age eighteen and is either (a) a

1Z.K. explains that state ICWA statutes cannot provide a more expansive definition
of “Indian child” because “the federal definition provides the boundary for the
application of both state and federal statutes.” 973 N.W.2d at 33.
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member of an Indian Tribe or (b) is eligible for membership in an Indian Tribe and

is the biological child of a member of an Indian Tribe[.]” Id. at 32 (alteration in

original) (quoting 25 U.S.C. § 1903(4)). “Under the federal definition, it is clear that

either the biological parent or the child must be a member of an Indian tribe in

order to trigger federal ICWA.” Id. At the time of the termination hearing neither

child was a member of the tribe nor was the father.2 There is no claim that the

mother is a member of the tribe. It does not matter that the children may become

members of the tribe at some future time. Id. at 32–33 (“It is clear that at the time

the determination of ICWA applicability is made by the court, either the biological

parent or the child must be a member of the tribe; it does not matter whether in the

future the child might become a member.”). What matters is that, at the time of the

termination hearing, neither of the children and neither of the parents were tribe

members.     Id. at 34 (noting the time of the hearing as the relevant point of

determining ICWA applicability). So, neither child met the definition of “Indian

child” within ICWA, ICWA did not apply to the case, and the State was not required

to establish it made active efforts to reunify the family. As ICWA applicability was

the sole basis for the mother’s claim on appeal, her claim fails.3

       AFFIRMED.

2 The father had applied for tribal membership but had not submitted all of the
documentation required by the tribe to establish his membership.
3 For good measure, we note our review of the record makes clear this family

received services intended to assist reunification, but the children could not be
safely reunified with either parent because the father was in prison and the mother
continued to abuse methamphetamine. So a statutory ground for termination was
satisfied. See Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(h). Termination was also in the children’s
best interests because it will help the children find a safe and permanent home.
See id. § 232.116(2).