The tribe intervened and has identified three dozen possible placements. The child's case falls under the purview of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which was enacted in the 1970s to help keep American Indian children with American Indian families. You want the child to stay with relatives, especially when Native American questions are at hand, whenever possible. However, Lexi also had extended family members who sought to adopt her once it was clear that a reunion with her birth father was not possible. One of Lexis biological sisters, who is Choctaw, lives with the Utah family, and another lives nearby. Magazines, Digital Her family will provide her a safe, stable and nurturing home to grow up with her sisters and to have contact with her extensive extended family. Lexi can remain where she. The Indian Child Welfare Act defines Indian children as enrollees or potential enrollees who have a biological parent who is a member of any of the country's 573 federally recognized tribes. In a statement to TV Line in June 2012, Leigh revealed . We told her we loved her and were fighting for her and well never stop fighting for her., Then, as can be seen in a video that soon went viral, he handed-over a crying Lexi as her foster mother Summer Page and three siblings sobbed in front of the house. The foster family filed appeals three times to keep Lexi, delaying the reuniting of Lexi with her relatives. July 8, 2016 / 10:41 PM While it is unclear what she is up to now in terms of her career, Lexi has enjoyed traveling quite a bit in the meantime. Rusty and Summer Page of Santa Clarita, California, had asked the Supreme Court to reconsider a Los Angeles juvenile courts ruling that there was no good cause to depart from the placement preferences in the Indian Child Welfare Act. Magazines, Or create a free account to access more articles, Inside the Agonizing Custody Fight Over Six-Year-Old Lexi. She was taken by the Department of Children and Families in Santa Clarita and placed with relatives of her father in Utah. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Pages have three children and want to adopt Lexi, who is 1/64th Choctaw on her birth father's side. The National Indian Child Welfare Association argues that the decision to re-place Lexi was the right one because "the purpose of foster care is to provide temporary care for children not to fast-track the creation of new families when there is extended family available who want to care for the child.". In the meantime, our clients hope that the family in Utah will follow through on their promise to keep Lexi in contact with her family in Los Angeles. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. "They were ashamed she was Native American, and they made her ashamed she was Native American," Maldonado said. The California Court of Appeals originally ruled in August of 2014 that Lexi could stay with the Pages and they could continue to fight the Utah family for custody of the child. The attorneys who brought this case to the high court made clear from the beginning that their goal was not only to remove Lexi from her [extended] family, but to overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act.. Copyright 2023 KABC Television, LLC. Garland testifies before Senate panel amid ongoing special counsel probes, Colon cancer rates rising in younger age group, study finds, Top McCarthy aide, House Oversight chair each met with Ashli Babbitt's mother, What to know about Shigella bacteria as drug-resistant strain spreads, Closing arguments underway in double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh, Ex-Georgia star Jalen Carter was racing in deadly crash, arrest warrants allege, Fiery train crash in Greece kills dozens, many of them students. (TR Knight) in a December 2020 episode. The case is one of dozens brought by foster families since the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in the late 1970s. ", The National Indian Child Welfare Association said in a statement that the Pages were aware for years that the girl was an American Indian but chose to "drag out litigation as long as possible, creating instability for the child. The law was designed to help Native American families remain intact. Still, Lexis story is reigniting tensions over the purpose of the ICWA and thorny questions over its role in determining the best interests of Indian children. She has woken up in their home every Christmas morning she can remember, and she has grown up over the past four years with three siblings who are her best friends and playmates. They do not get the same best-interest-of-the-child standard that applies to all other children. "There's no doubt in my mind that what happened to Lexi should have never occurred," said Lauren Axline, a former foster care worked who handled Lexi's case in the past. Lexi is a 6-year-old girl from California who has spent the the majority of her life in a loving home - a home that she wanted to be her forever home. They are not interested in anything except full custody, and they are not thinking about this little girls best interests, the lawyers statement said. Lexi was placed with the Pages who have three other children in December 2011 after two unsuccessful foster homes, including one where she was taken out of because of a black eye and a scrape on her face, the court documents said. Under the transfer, Lexi will live with a Utah couple who are not Native Americans but are related by marriage to her father. The LA DCFS said in a statement that the department always seeks to act in the best interest of the children it serves. It means that Indian kids will not have the same stability that non-Indian kids have. The Pages say they have repeatedly tried to adopt Lexi since she came to live with them when she was two-years-old. The Pages' case to get Lexi back went all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear it. The wrenching dispute echoes themes of the 2013 Baby Veronica case, in which an adoptive family sued for custody of a young Cherokee girl after her biological father renounced paternal rights. In the meantime, our clients hope that the family in Utah will follow through on their promise to keep Lexi in contact with her family in Los Angeles. But officials determined that Lexi is 1/64th Choctaw based on his ancestry. Thomas Blakely, a Choctaw Indian teenager, lives with his family in Idabel, Okla., one of many poor, rural communities within the sprawling . "The law is very clear that siblings should be kept together whenever they can be, and they should be placed together even if they were not initially together," Heimov told the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/1pYtXlg ). Because Lexi is 1.5% Native American, the Choctaw Tribe was able to completely tear apart Lexi's life due to an egregious misapplication of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Lexi had sobbed as she was taken away, begging her father: 'Don't let them take me away.'. , updated February 28, 2023. Previously, Leslie Heimov of the Children's Law Center of California said: 'The law is very clear that siblings should be kept together whenever they can be, and they should be placed together even if they were not initially together. By. This button displays the currently selected search type. The expansion of Anglo-American settlement into the Trans-Appalachian west led to the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, forcing all eastern tribal nations to move to new homelands west of the Mississippi River in the Indian Territory. The Pages said they will keep fighting for changes to the law 'and the rights of other children unnecessarily hurt by the Indian Child Welfare Act.'. And Lexi is part Choctaw, a federally recognized American Indian tribe, which means the Indian Child Welfare Acts placement preferences applied. "Fundamentally, the issue here is that the Indian Child Welfare Act subordinates individualized considerations of a child's best interest in favor of a blunt assumption that being placed with a tribe is going to be better for the tribe, and that's just demonstrably untrue," he said. The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a foster familys challenge to the adoption of their former foster daughter under the Indian Child Welfare Act. Every time Zoe, whos the youngest, hears the doorbell she says Lexis home, he says. Unlike other cases in Grey's Anatomy where the actors left due to behind-the-scenes problems, Chyler Leigh decided it was time to close Lexie's arc as she wanted to spend more time with her family. The appeal to return Lexi to the Pages is still before the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles. She was placed with extended family in Utah under a decades-old federal law designed to keep Native American families together. AccuWeather: AM showers before a mild afternoon, Teammate facing charges in crash that killed local UGA player, Teens in stolen car crash into school bus on way to field trip in NJ. The child ultimately was placed with her maternal grandmother, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Once a child is placed with a Native American family, it is highly unlikely that the decision would be reversed, he added. Tribes also have a say in foster care placements. The Pages argued that Lexi has lived with them since the age of 2 and considers them her family. Many in tears @NBCLA pic.twitter.com/lM1iWZiChk, The Pages lawyer said in a statement Sunday that they had been willing to offer the Utah family visitation rights, but they never responded to offers of compromise.. The comments below have not been moderated, By The Choctaw Nation issued a press release saying it was "pleased that this lengthy and unnecessary litigation has been brought to an end by the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, Lexi and her extended family have had monthly visits and Skyped at least once a week prior to her relocation. Lexi can remain where she belongs, with extended family that will raise her and a sister in the Choctaw tradition. Matthew McGill represents the Brackeens, two other couples from Nevada and Minnesota, and a birth mother in the case. Its a crusade to them. One of the Pages attorneys, Lori Alvino McGill, also represented the adoptive family in the Baby Veronica case. Last March, she was taken from her foster home near Los Angeles, and a state appeals court in July upheld the girl's removal from the Page home. "It would be fairly extraordinary for an appeals court to reverse that," he said. Leslie Starr Heimov, executive director of the Center, told the ABA Journal last year that the Pages would have been unlikely to get custody even if ICWA had not applied to the case. 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