This should never have been a legal issue.
From the Chicago Tribune: A 4-year-old Cherokee girl known as "Baby Veronica," who is at the center of a cross-country custody battle, was handed back to her adoptive non-Native American family on Monday, Cherokee Nation officials told Reuters.
The transfer came hours after the Oklahoma Supreme Court lifted a stay, clearing the way for the girl to be transferred from the custody of her biological father in Oklahoma, Dusten Brown, with whom she has lived for nearly two years.
Brown gave Veronica to her white adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco of South Carolina, at 7:30 p.m. CDT on Monday in an emotional but peaceful handoff, Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree said in a statement released late Monday.
In his statement, Hembree did not say if the nation would continue to fight alongside Brown for custody, but his comments suggested that the four-year legal battle could be coming to an end....
Veronica's birth mother, who is not Native American, arranged the adoption with the Capobiancos before the girl was born. Brown has argued he did not know the mother would give her up for adoption when he signed away his parental rights.
Brown, who was not married to the birth mother, argued that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 allowed him to have custody of Veronica, who is 3/256th Cherokee. A South Carolina family court agreed with him and he took custody of her in 2011.
But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling and decided the act did not apply. Her adoption by the Capobiancos was finalized in July, but Brown refused to turn her over. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-southcarolina-adoption-20130923,0,1036094.story
I'm sorry but a person who is about 1% Indian is no more of an Indian than anybody else. If you want Indian benefits from a reservation, you need a whole lot more than 1% Indian blood in you to get the benefits.
This should not have been a legal issue and the right thing now is happening, with the little girl going to live with her rightful parents.
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What's more troubling is how confused this kid will be. Having been torn between two households and three parents, isn't going to to be easy. It's a travesty her birth father dragged this out for the most selfish of reasons. He signed away his parental rights - that means he didn't want anything to do with the child (child support, etc.), and adoption was a likely guess as to what the birth mother was planning, but since he signed away the rights, it didn't matter.
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