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Brackeen v. Haaland

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (en banc) · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawICWAIndian Child Welfare ActIndian affairs powerIndian Commerce Clausetrust relationshipSupremacy ClauseTenth Amendment

Facts

ICWA sets minimum federal standards for child-custody proceedings involving an "Indian child" and gives tribes and Indian families specified participation and placement rights in those proceedings. Plaintiffs included Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana, along with individual foster and adoptive parents, and they facially challenged ICWA and the Department of the Interior's 2016 Final Rule. Congress enacted ICWA after finding that states and nontribal agencies were removing Indian children from their families and tribes at alarmingly high rates and placing many of them in non-Indian homes. The district court agreed with Plaintiffs and invalidated parts of ICWA and the Final Rule, but the lead opinion concluded most Plaintiffs had standing while their merits challenges largely failed.

Issue

Whether Plaintiffs had Article III standing to challenge ICWA and the Final Rule, and whether ICWA and the Final Rule were invalid under Congress's Article I powers, the anticommandeering doctrine, equal protection, the nondelegation doctrine, and the APA. The lead opinion also addressed whether the Final Rule was within the BIA's statutory authority and reasonably construed ICWA.

Rule

A plaintiff must show injury in fact, traceability, and redressability for each claim, though one plaintiff with standing suffices for a claim. Congress possesses plenary and exclusive authority in Indian affairs, grounded in the Constitution and the federal-tribal trust relationship, and may enact legislation rationally tied to fulfilling its unique obligations to Indian tribes. A federal law validly preempts state law if it is within Congress's constitutional power and regulates private actors or otherwise imposes obligations state courts must honor under the Supremacy Clause; generally applicable federal regulation of activity in which states and private actors both engage does not violate the anticommandeering doctrine. Classifications based on tribal membership or eligibility tied to federally recognized tribes are political, not racial, and are reviewed under rational-basis review. Congress may incorporate or delegate limited authority to tribes under § 1915(c), and the BIA may promulgate binding rules reasonably related to ICWA under § 1952, with Chevron deference applying to reasonable interpretations of statutory ambiguity.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Phoenix, Maya and Owen Reed completed the adoption of a child who qualifies under a federal statute protecting children connected to federally recognized tribes. Two years later, they sue in federal court, arguing that provisions allowing certain parties to later challenge adoptions violate equal protection because those provisions make their family vulnerable to attack, but no biological parent, tribe, or other person has threatened or attempted any challenge.

Do Maya and Owen most likely have Article III standing to challenge those collateral-attack provisions?

Explanation. Standing requires a concrete, actual or imminent injury, not a conjectural one. Under the lead opinion, fear that some third party might someday invoke provisions authorizing later challenges to an adoption is too speculative absent allegations that anyone is actually seeking or intends to seek invalidation. The mere possibility of future collateral attack does not create injury in fact. (Derived from Brackeen v. Haaland (n.d.).)