In Season 2 of her podcast, This Land, Rebecca Nagle does some serious investigative journalism, uncovering a small network of powerful ultra-conservative power-brokers, foundations, law firms, attorneys, and judges working together to tear down the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Their ultimate goal, however, is not just to take Native children from their tribes and families– it is to tear down the legal framework of Native sovereignty altogether, to open Native lands for oil development, pipelines, and any other corporate enterprise. They want to use a tool of genocide, the removal of children, to destroy Native governing authority.

I highly recommend listening to all eight episodes of Season 2 of This Land. (Season 1, about the history of the Cherokee Nation, the Trail of Tears, and the McGirt decision is also excellent.)

To guide your listening – and to help me follow the story – I’ve created this diagram. You can also see the actual text of the podcast at the link above by clicking on the individual episode pages.

CLICK DIAGRAM TO ENLARGE

Nagle paints a sordid picture: cringe-worthy evangelical church members seeking to adopt “beautiful” Native children; adoption agencies minimizing ICWA; lawyers openly ignoring ICWA; judges in league with a conservative agenda also openly against ICWA; an illegal indigenous baby pipeline between Arizona and New Hampshire; powerful lawyers working pro bono to take down ICWA; right wing think tanks trying to take down all Native sovereignty; biased and prejudiced judges with little knowledge of Native sovereignty under the US Constitution; and, coming soon, a Supreme Court with many of the same biases and lack of knowledge. In the face of this tsunami of naivete and prejudice, harnessed by those with ill intent, tribal governing authority now seems to hang by a thread. It feels very much like the 1800s.

UPDATE (November 2022): Brakeen v Haaland has been heard by SCOTUS. Here is my essay about how that went, focusing on a certain naïve question by Justice Alito.

UPDATE (April 2023): As predicted, the Brakeen case is not just about children; it’s about money. A new case seeks to shut down Indian gaming using the same race-based arguments.