Haaland v. Brackeen

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) required private parties and states to make active efforts to keep Indian families together. An Indian was defined as someone belonging to an Indian tribe. ICWA required that states place tribal children with tribal caretakers to the extent possible and keep records of these efforts. ICWA’s provisions were causing the non-Indian Clifford and Brackeen families (plaintiffs) to experience significant difficulties adopting an Indian child. The families, Texas, and other states sued the secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, and others (collectively, the federal government) (defendants), seeking a declaration that ICWA was unconstitutional because it (1) exceeded Congress’s Article I powers by regulating family matters, (2) violated the Tenth Amendment’s anticommandeering principles by requiring that the states take certain affirmative actions, (3) violated the Equal Protection Clause by giving a preference based on race, and (4) violated the nondelegation doctrine by allowing tribes to change the statute’s placement order if desired. The district court ruled for the families. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that Congress had authority to enact ICWA and that the act did not violate the nondelegation doctrine. However, the Fifth Circuit also ruled that ICWA violated the Tenth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.