In re Baby Boy C.
Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division
805 N.Y.S.2d 313 (2005)
Rita C., a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation who had left her tribal community and no longer participated in its affairs, gave birth to Baby Boy C. with a non-Native father and consented, along with the father, to the child's adoption by a non-Native couple, Jeffrey A. and Joshua A. (plaintiffs); Rita's consent acknowledged the child might be an "Indian child" under the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and she waived ICWA's placement preferences, but the tribe (defendant), though notified, initially did not appear. When the tribe later intervened in the New York adoption proceeding, the trial court found ICWA inapplicable because the child wasn't part of an "existing Indian family," allowing the adoption to proceed, and the tribe appealed.
Whether the Indian Child Welfare Act applies to the adoption of a child whose mother is Native American but lives outside her tribal community with no expectation that she or her children would be raised within the tribe's environment or culture.