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

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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
Updated:
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: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015). He is a contributor to The Heritage Foundation’s “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.”
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