## Facts

- Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), governing certain state foster-care, termination-of-parental-rights, and adoption proceedings involving an “Indian child.”
- ICWA establishes procedural protections in involuntary child-custody proceedings, including “active efforts” requirements and qualified expert testimony tied to risk of serious harm.
- ICWA also sets default placement preferences for Indian children (subject to “good cause” to depart), generally favoring extended family, members of the child’s tribe, and other Indian families; tribes may reorder preferences by tribal resolution.
- Non-Indian foster/adoptive parents and the State of Texas challenged multiple ICWA provisions as unconstitutional.
- A federal district court invalidated substantial portions of ICWA; the court of appeals issued a divided en banc decision upholding some provisions while finding others unconstitutional.
- Federal officials and tribal intervenors sought review; the Supreme Court consolidated petitions and reviewed Article I, Tenth Amendment, equal protection, and nondelegation challenges.

## Issues

1. Whether ICWA exceeds Congress’s Article I authority to legislate concerning Indian affairs.
2. Whether ICWA violates the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering principle by requiring state courts and state agencies to apply federal child-placement standards and related mandates.
3. Whether ICWA’s placement preferences violate equal protection.
4. Whether ICWA violates the nondelegation doctrine by allowing tribes to reorder placement preferences by resolution.

## Decision

- The Court upheld ICWA against the Article I and anti-commandeering challenges and left the statute in force.
- The Court declined to disturb the lower court’s conclusion that ICWA falls within Congress’s Article I authority in Indian affairs.
- The Court rejected the Tenth Amendment claims, concluding the challenged provisions validly bind state courts and otherwise regulate participants in proceedings rather than compelling state legislatures or executive officials to administer a federal program.
- The Court dismissed the equal-protection and nondelegation challenges for lack of Article III standing because the challengers did not show a concrete injury fairly traceable to the federal defendants and likely to be redressed by relief against them.

## Legal Principles

- Congress may legislate in areas commonly regulated by states, including family-law contexts, when acting within enumerated federal powers related to Indian affairs.
- Federal law may impose rules of decision on state courts when Congress validly legislates; applying such federal standards in state adjudications is not, by itself, commandeering.
- Anti-commandeering doctrine prohibits compelling state legislatures or executive officials to enact or administer federal regulatory programs, but it does not bar generally applicable federal requirements applied through state-court proceedings.
- Article III standing requires injury in fact, traceability to the defendant, and likely redressability; claims may be dismissed when alleged harms arise from independent state-court actions or speculative future events (such as unproven injury from a tribal preference reordering).

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court sustained ICWA against Article I and Tenth Amendment challenges and dismissed equal-protection and nondelegation attacks for lack of standing, leaving ICWA fully operative while reserving unresolved constitutional questions for cases with properly established standing.


Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U.S. 255 (2023)