02/08/2022
IFPA will protect rights of Native families in child
welfare system
BY REP. GEORGENE LOUIS
ALBUQUERQUE DEMOCRAT
As a Native American woman, I know the importance
of family and community support firsthand. I became a
young mother when I was a sophomore in high school.
My incredible intergenerational family offered me
support and helped me raise my daughter so I could
finish high school then complete my bachelor’s and
law degrees. Native communities are families, and we
have supported each other for generations. As a state
legislator, I am proud to carry the critical needs of our
tribes, nations, and pueblos to the New Mexico
Capitol.
During this 2022 legislative session, I am working to
pass House Bill 135, the Indian Family Protection Act
(IFPA), to ensure Native American families in New
Mexico have better rights within the child welfare
system.
Tribal leaders, tribal child welfare workers, advocates,
and impacted families have come together to craft
IFPA.
Together, our community is working to pass this
legislation during the session. IFPA recognizes the
sovereign rights of the 23 tribes of New Mexico and
their self-determination in preserving their cultural
lineage through their children.
The need for IFPA couldn’t be more clear. Studies
conducted in the 1970s found that more than one in
four Indian children nationwide were removed from
their homes and communities by state child welfare
systems and private adoption agencies. Before 1978,
approximately 80% of Native American families living
on reservations lost at least one child to the foster care
system.
After years of work by impacted families, advocates,
and others, the federal Indian Child Welfare Act
(ICWA) was passed in 1978. Federal ICWA decreased
rates of forced family separations and mandated that
states honor the sovereignty of Indian nations.
Though states often did not fully follow through on the
implementation of ICWA, federal ICWA provided
critical minimum standards for Native children,
families, and tribes in the child welfare system.
Yet today, individual parties and states like Texas,
Indiana, and Louisiana are bringing cases to the U.S.
Supreme Court to challenge and even dismantle ICWA.
Other states, including New Mexico, are deeply
concerned and unsure about the future of federal
ICWA, and they are moving to create protections that
include and go beyond federal law.
Advocates in our communities throughout New
Mexico want to ensure that we are taking this
opportunity to not only enact the minimal protections
of ICWA but also expand them and create a law that
will work for our families.
Key to IFPA in New Mexico and mandates to CYFD
will include: immediately communicating with tribes
when the state receives an investigation on an Indian
family, a focus on placing Indian children with their
relatives, and requiring various support services
connecting children to their tribal communities and
traditional teachings.
Native children need their communities. Native
communities need their children. New Mexico must act
to pass the New Mexico Indian Family Protection Act
today. Our culture, traditions, and our very lives
depend on it.
Georgene Louis is a state representative in House
