"It's not going to be true in every case.". Lawmakers found that Native American families were broken up at disproportionately high rates, and that cultural ignorance and biases within the child welfare system were largely to blame. The comments below have not been moderated, By When the grandmother died, Maldonado's mother was sent to live in Indiana with a Mennonite family who put bleach on her skin to lighten it, told her to say she was Armenian and kept her from communicating with her family, she said. Chyler Grey starred in Grey's Anatomy on ABC from 2007 until 2012. . The Five Tribes purchased new lands in present-day Oklahoma, but some relocated . ", The Choctaw Nation said it "desires the best for this Choctaw child.". The Pages had cared for the girl, known in court as Lexi, for four years and wanted to adopt her. About a dozen states have similar laws, some of which expand the definition, said Sarah Kastelic, director of the National Indian Child Welfare Association. Once a child is placed with a Native American family, it is highly unlikely that the decision would be reversed, he added. Lexi can remain where she. But new hope is on the horizon for the Choctaw Nation. Lexi is now with her extended family and her biological sister in Utah. Since then, Lexi has celebrated four birthdays with the Page family. ICWA is the subject of other legal challenges, as the ABA Journal noted last October. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The girl's sister is living with the couple, and another sister will be living down the street, said Leslie Heimov of the Children's Law Center of California, Lexi's court-appointed legal representatives. The state denied their request after the Navajo Nation identified a potential home with a Navajo family in New Mexico. Long Waits, Short Appointments, Huge Bills. 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"The law is very clear that siblings should be kept together whenever they can be, and they should be placed together even if they were not initially together," Heimov told the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/1pYtXlg ). We are appealing the decision, and we have asked the state Supreme Court to step in and halt this hasty change in custody before it causes irreparable harm. "They are not strangers in any way, shape or form. The expansion of Anglo-American settlement into the Trans-Appalachian west led to the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, forcing all eastern tribal nations to move to new homelands west of the Mississippi River in the Indian Territory. They say tribes are a political classification, not a racial one, and overturning the Indian Child Welfare Act would lead to untold damage in tribal communities. First published on March 12, 2019 / 8:06 AM. "The law is very clear that siblings should be kept together whenever they can be, and they should be placed together even if they were not initially together," Heimov told the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/1pYtXlg ). The documents said that Lexi is related to the Utah couple, who are not Native American, through her step-grandfather. Earlier this week I shared the story of a California family that risked losing their six-year-old foster daughter Lexi simply because the girl is 1/64 Choctaw. ABC's Kayna Whitworth has the details from Los Angeles. "She has a loving relationship with them," Heimov said. Distraught and weeping, Page shared his foster daughter's parting words with CBS Los Angeles: "Don't let them take me. The Pages have appealed the case to the California Supreme Court. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. The experts along with Lexi's long-time individual therapists, her social worker and her attorney, all agree it is in her best interest to be with her relatives. Hernandez isn't Native American, but the biological father is from Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in El Paso, Texas. The law allows states to deviate from placement preferences when there is "good cause." The case was decided in the California court system three separate times, with three different trial court judges ruling in favor of Lexi's relatives in Utah. Sleep is overrated. Her name is Lexi," the petition said. The bottom line is that children subject to ICWA are second-class citizens, by law. Lexi was 17 months old when she was removed from the custody of her mother, who had drug-abuse problems. In 2011, extended family in Utah became aware that Lexi was with a foster family and expressed interest in adopting her, according to the documents. Images of foster father Rusty Page clutching 6-year-old Lexi left an indelible mark when the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services arrived to take her away from Page and his wife's Valencia home in March. Every time Zoe, whos the youngest, hears the doorbell she says Lexis home, he says. Foster care is a much-needed temporary service provided for children until the child can be returned to the care of his or her family. She has a broken nose, a cheekbone and also a hole in her jaw. A California appeals court affirmed in July a lower court's decision to remove the girl. The Pages were always aware of this goal. Copyright 2023 by The Associated Press. Lexis only parent with Choctaw blood is her birth father, who never had custody of her. The Pages said they will keep fighting for changes to the law 'and the rights of other children unnecessarily hurt by the Indian Child Welfare Act.'. A crowd of friends and neighbors wept, prayed or sang hymns. Elisha Fieldstadt is a breaking news reporter for NBC News. "How is it that a screaming child, saying, 'I want to stay, I'm scared,' how is it in her best interest to pull her from the girl she was before that doorbell rang?" The result here is all the more senseless because placing Lexi with her non-Indian extended family members does nothing to further ICWA's purpose of keeping children connected to their tribes. The Minnesota couple, the Cliffords, wanted to adopt a girl who lived with them after being in various foster homes for two years. David Crane / Los Angeles Daily News via AP, had been camped out in the street singing and praying since Sunday. The case brought dozens of people to the Pages' Santa Clarita neighborhood to demonstrate against plans to move Lexi. The family's lawyer, Lori Alvino McGill, filed the request for the California Supreme Court to hear the appeal. She was placed with extended family in Utah under a decades-old federal law designed to keep Native American families together. But 6-year-old Lexi's foster family says the application of the law in . Shes visited them several times and has regular Skype calls with them, so theyre not strangers. All Rights Reserved. Many steps have been taken by the Choctaw Nation to ensure the best placement of Lexi. The law has led to some emotional, high-profile cases, including one in 2016 in which a court ordered that a young Choctaw girl named Lexi be removed from a California foster family and placed with her father's extended family in Utah. Theyre using this to attack tribal sovereignty, attack Indian people, and attack the Indian Child Welfare act, he says. She said unlike her, 11-year-old Riley is growing up on the reservation and learning about traditional medicine and a culture that includes hunting and fishing. But this case shines a bright light on the ways in which the law in its current form is routinely being misinterpreted, with devastating consequences for families and children. Fletcher contends the Pages lawyers are using Lexis case as a legal weapon to challenge ICWA. There's a heartbreaking update to . DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES. She has woken up in their home every Christmas morning she can remember, and she has grown up over the past four years with three siblings who are her best friends and playmates. "It coerces state agencies and courts to carry out unconstitutional and illegal federal policy, and it makes child custody decisions based on racial preferences," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said. "They were ashamed she was Native American, and they made her ashamed she was Native American," Maldonado said. 1 talking about this. "The Choctaw Nation has advocated for Lexi to live with her family since 2011," the tribe said in a statement. Since then, Lexi has celebrated four birthdays with the Page family. "Rather the issue is whether the child is a citizen of the tribe in question or eligible for citizenship.". It was enacted in 1978 because of the high removal rate of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from Indian culture as a whole. LEXINGTON, Ky. (RNS) After more than two weeks and worldwide headlines, revival services at Asbury University in central Kentucky came to an end recently . The following statement reflects the Choctaw Nation's position on the case of Lexi. The standard is supposed to be the best interest of the child, and thats why these things have to be judged on a case-by-case basis., The Choctaw Nation declined to make the Utah family available for comment, citing concerns over Lexis safety. They have maintained a relationship with her, visiting her in California, making regular SKYPE calls, and Lexi has also been on extended visits to Utah. We will continue to expeditiously pursue our appeal through the state courts in California, and, if necessary, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lexi, a six-year-old with one-and-a-half per cent Choctaw blood has been removed from her foster parents of five years Protesters tried to stop government officials from taking the child from. They are her sisters. Lexi, who is 1.5 percent, or 1/64 Choctaw, was six years old when she was taken from her foster home near Los Angeles in a tearful parting last March. Lexi is a 6-year-old girl from California who has spent the the majority of her life in a loving home a home that she wanted to be her forever home. "To say we are heartbroken is an understatement.". Her name is Lexi, the petition said. The placement preferences are just that -- preferences-- and they apply only when a child is in need of a placement. It means that Indian kids will not have the same stability that non-Indian kids have. The Pages say they have repeatedly tried to adopt Lexi since she came to live with them when she was two-years-old. There is a 6-year-old little girl who is going to be ripped away from the only family that she has ever known. Often there are no easy solutions, but when a court makes an order, we must follow it, said the departments director, Philip Browning. Our hearts are broken and we are trying to make sense of everything that has happened with our three other children who witnessed their sister Lexi forcefully ripped away from our family by strangers," the Page family said in a statement Monday night. But this case shines a bright light on the ways in which the law in its current form is routinely being misinterpreted, with devastating consequences for families and children. The Indian Child Welfare Act is meant to help tribes keep children in tribal homes where they can learn about their culture. 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