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Indian Child Welfare Act: Another Case of Congress’s Overreach Goes to Supreme Court

Indian Child Welfare Act: Another Case of Congress’s Overreach Goes to Supreme Court
A copy of the U.S. Constitution is seen in Washington on Dec. 17, 2019. Andrew Harnik/Pool/Getty Images
Rob Natelson
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Commentary

The federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is a classic instance of congressional overreach: It imposes sweeping child adoption rules on the states and has caused extreme hardship for Native American children and the non-Native families who have opened their hearts and homes to those children.

Rob Natelson
Rob Natelson
Author
Robert G. Natelson, a former constitutional law professor who is senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, authored “The Original Constitution” (4th ed., 2025). He is a contributor to The Heritage Foundation’s “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.” He also researched and wrote the scholarly article “Virgil and the Constitution,” whose publication is pending in Regent University Law Review.
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