CHILDREN AND THE LAW
...Dependency Petitions
......Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)
.........Applicability
............ICWA Not Applicable
 12 Cards On This Topic:
  • ICWA does not apply when Cherokee F never had custody and does not bar termination of his parental rights; non-Indian family may adopt when no other eligible candidates sought adoption; remanded.
  • As CRC 5.484(c)(2) merely directs the court to pursue tribal membership for C who is an Indian child per ICWA, to prevent the breakup of the Indian family and to qualify C for tribal services, it is consistent with state law and valid.
  • ICWA was inapplicable to dependency case where the child, adopted by a mother with Indian heritage, was neither a member of an Indian tribe himself, nor the biological child of a member.
  • Appellate court cannot override Choctaw Nation's determination that children are not eligible for tribal membership.
  • No error in finding ICWA did not apply even though tribal notices misspelled GM's first name and left out middle name-no showing which of record's variant spellings was correct and F did not show spelling in notice was in error.
  • Reversal and remand to require court to comply with ICWA would be futile where 20-yr.-old disabled woman had reached age of majority and was not an "Indian child" within meaning of the ICWA.
  • Juvenile court properly determined Cs not Indian children per ICWA where neither they nor parents, though eligible, were enrolled in tribe.
  • As ICWA not implicated in orders appealed from, failure to comply with ICWA notice provisions had no impact upon court's orders—any failure to comply with ICWA not cognizable in this appeal.
  • No duty to inquire re Indian heritage where no evidence M was Indian and no authority for proposition that ICWA provisions generally apply to delinquency proceedings.
  • Where dependency case was not a custody battle arising out of divorce, dissolution exception of ICWA inapplicable.
  • Lack of BIA response to notice of possible Indian child, and absence of communication by any tribe, tantamount to determinations that C was not an “Indian child” within meaning of ICWA.
  • Parents failed to prove Indian child exception to termination applied where ICWA expert testified to contrary and any hearsay objections waived.


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