image
image

Protect the Indian Child Welfare Act

image

Native children and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland are under legal attack in Brackeen v. Haaland. The powerful people behind the lawsuit include both Big Oil and the State of Texas. If their attempt to have a conservative-majority Supreme Court overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act is successful, the door will be open to the total elimination of tribal sovereignty. Take action now to stop this horrific attack on Native rights!

Petition Text:

Dear President Biden and attorneys for the Department of Justice,

The Supreme Court is deliberating on the case of Brackeen v. Haaland. I write today to ask you to do everything in your power to protect the Indian Child Welfare Act and defend Secretary Deb Haaland. We need strong federal protection of Native families and tribal sovereignty.

Please file every available motion, prepare every legal argument judiciously, and do everything else you can to stop this attack on tribal citizens. The plaintiffs will not be easily stopped. Should the Supreme Court validate the plaintiffs' argument that tribes do not have the power to place their own enrolled children in tribal kinship care, we will have crossed a rubicon into dangerous legal territory that could ultimately lead to the disbanding of tribal nations — and the loss of tribal lands, gaming revenues, and mineral rights.

It's no coincidence that the same attorneys — Gibson Dunn — representing the plaintiffs in this case also have deep ties to fossil fuel interests such as Enbridge and TC Energy (the oil conglomerates responsible for attacking tribal interests through the Line 3 and Dakota Access pipelines, respectively).

The Indigenous peoples of this land have always deserved better. The few gains made over centuries littered with oppression, in the face of overwhelming systemic racism, must not be lost now. Please fight hard to protect original Americans. Please do everything possible to stop this attack on children, families, and sovereignty.

=