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SofieTerleska t1_ivhy1gw wrote

It's true that there are difficult edge case situations that arise with ICWA but the Brackeens' isn't one of them and honestly, they piss me off. Anyone who becomes a foster parent has to realize that the situation is unlikely to be permanent, and if they weren't instructed about how ICWA works when they were taking foster parenting classes that was horrific negligence on the part of whoever did the instruction. I'm sure they truly love these children but they knew from the beginning that they were Indian and that if suitable Native/biological family members or foster carers could be found, the kids would go to them -- and now they're basically trying to run out the clock hoping that the kids will have spent too long with them and courts won't want to send them anywhere else. And the arguments for not sending the little girl to her relatives is basically that they're poor -- and that's the reason ICWA was passed in the first place, so many children were being taken from Indian families due to poverty (and also for legitimately good reasons, but the bar was a LOT lower when it came to taking kids from Indian families) that their communities were being hollowed out. I mean damn, dude, I don't have a swimming pool either, does that mean you have the right to take my kids in court? It's awful to have a child leave your home, but this is literally what you signed up for when you became a foster parent.

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