Haaland v. Brackeen

Haaland v. Brackeen Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen Texas v. Haaland Brackeen v. Haaland
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 9, 2022 Decided June 15, 2023
Full case name	Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, et al. v. Chad Everet Brackeen, et al. Cherokee Nation, et al. v. Chad Everet Brackeen, et al. Texas v. Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, et al. Chad Everet Brackeen, et al. v. Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, et al.
Docket nos.	21-376 21-377 21-378 21-380
Argument	Oral argument
Opinion announcement	Opinion announcement
Case history
Prior	Brackeen et al v. Zinke et al, 388 F. Supp. 3d 514 (N.D. Tex. 2018); Brackeen et al v. Bernhardt et al, 937 F.3d 406 (5th Cir. 2019); Brackeen et al v. Haaland et al, 994 F.3d 249 (5th Cir. 2021) (en banc)
Questions presented
Whether various provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act violate the anticommandeering doctrine of the Tenth Amendment, the nondelegation doctrine, Congress's limited authority under the Indian Commerce Clause, or the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment, and whether the petitioners have standing.
Holding
1. The Court declines to disturb the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that ICWA is consistent with Congress’s Article I authority. 2. Petitioners’ anticommandeering challenges, which address three categories of ICWA provisions, are rejected. 3. The Court does not reach the merits of petitioners’ two additional claims—an equal protection challenge to ICWA’s placement preferences and a nondelegation challenge to §1915(c), the provision allowing tribes to alter the placement preferences—because no party before the Court has standing to raise them.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh Amy Coney Barrett · Ketanji Brown Jackson
Case opinions
Majority	Barrett, joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Jackson
Concurrence	Gorsuch, joined by Sotomayor, Jackson (Parts I and III)
Concurrence	Kavanaugh
Dissent	Thomas
Dissent	Alito
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. V, X Indian Child Welfare Act

Haaland v. Brackeen was a Supreme Court of the United States case brought by the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Indiana, and individual plaintiffs, that sought to declare the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) unconstitutional. In addition to Haaland v. Brackeen (Docket No. 21-376),^[1] three additional cases were consolidated to be heard at the same time: Cherokee Nation v. Brackeen (Docket No. 21-377), Texas v. Haaland (Docket No. 21-378), and Brackeen v. Haaland (Docket No. 21-380).

The matter originally came up in a Texas District Court on an adoption petition filed by Chad and Jennifer Brackeen. After their effort was challenged by the Navajo Nation, the Brackeens brought suit in the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth. The Cherokee Nation, Oneida Nation, Quinault Indian Nation, and Morongo Band of Mission Indians intervened in the case. The U.S. District Court declared that the ICWA was unconstitutional and the case was appealed.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court in a panel opinion. The full court, on rehearing the case en banc, held that parts of the law, that set federal standards for lower and state courts, were constitutional, but that the parts of the law that required state agencies to perform certain acts were unconstitutional as a violation of the Tenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court heard the case on November 9, 2022, and the decision was handed down on June 15, 2023. In a 7–2 ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit's determination that the ICWA is consistent with congressional powers. The appellant claims of state commandeering were rejected, reversing the Fifth Circuit's decision. No determinations were made as to appellant Fourteenth Amendment claims for lack of standing.