***

I’m going to work chronologically, (yet in inverse order from the Nebraska DHHS safe haven page’s latest press release.)

Firstly, there was another uncounted in the official tabulation dump the Sunday night:

In addition, there was a report that the safe haven law may have been used in Lincoln last night regarding an 18-year old. DHHS has investigated and confirmed with the Lancaster County Attorney’s Office that a juvenile petition will not be filed in this instance. As a result, Landry said DHHS does not consider this a use of the safe haven law, but is providing assistance to the young woman on a voluntary basis.

Once again, another 18-year old fell down the dump slot, 18 being that age that Nebraska won’t provide foster care etc to, nor count as an official dump, yet still legally classifies as a “child”, not yet an adult.

KCCI has a report, Another Teen Abandoned In Nebraska. She was another adoptee, “returns department” dump:

The woman told officials at BryanLGH Medical Center West that her daughter, who was adopted, is bipolar and has a learning disability, Assistant Police Chief Jim Peschong said Monday. The girl was left at the hospital at about 11 p.m.

“The adoptive mother says that the daughter refused to take some medication for some conditions that she has,” Peschong said. “She won’t listen to her, can’t control her.”

Marley/Bastardette has a post up about the incident as well, MORE NEBRASKA FIASCO: WOMAN ATTEMPTS TO DUMP ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

Her tabulation of the dumped adoptees, “returns department” dumps to date:

So far, one other dumpee has been confirmed as adopted, 2 others reported (but not confirmed) as kinship adopted. I believe there are more.

Then secondly, yesterday (Monday) morning, a 17 year old boy was abandoned. According to the Nebraska DHHS safe haven page’s latest press release, his mother left him off at Creighton University Medical Center. He is counted as the 30th officially counted dumped kid in the Nebraska DHHS count. (Link opens a PDF)

Both Marley and I have been tracking the number of kids not included in official Nebraska DHHS count as well. She’s found an additional 11 cases of what she’s terming “attempted dumps.”

So DHHS count aside, the kid-centric count, actually stands at at least 41.

As I’ve said before, mine is a Bastard blog. I care about what the kids themselves are experiencing. Some of the uncounted, “unofficially” dumped kids are every bit as separated from the world they once knew as any other counted dumped kid, they just don’t match the state’s dumper criteria or age limit criteria.

Some are self “haven” cases wherein the kids themselves have reached out for help, only to find no “haven” on the other end.

Those 11, roughly 1/4 of all the Nebraska dump cases are rendered invisible. The kids are treated as mere ghosts in the machine, the memories of their dumps kept alive only by those of us who continue to insist, they are no less dumped, they are no less in need.

Yet as Nebraska legislators gather to age down to the next version of dump law failure, a Nebraska dump law 2.0, a full quarter of the cases, a quarter of the dumped kids, will likely never even be considered, because they don’t apparently count.

***

Repeal the dump laws now.

***

Before even starting to write about this topic, keep in mind the disclaimer I’ve placed upon earlier writings I’ve done in relation to First Nations peoples and adoption:

To start from a personal perspective, I’m just a Bastard, a politically active adoptee.

Being legally prohibited from attaining my State sealed records, I have no idea what heritage cultural or genetic my biological family might contain, other than a quick glance in a mirror appears to indicate pretty clearly a hefty chunk of what would generally be termed “white” by sociological definition. The family history of those who adopted me has interwoven at times with First Nations peoples on both the American and Canadian sides of the border.

While my interest in this subject, yes at times does relate to aspects of ‘familial’ history, my primary interest in such is historical and political, speaking from both a Bastard perspective, as one who opposes forms and tactics of colonialism (religious, political, etc), and as one who supports indigenous peoples’ autonomy and demands for redress.

***

Ironically, the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA in relation to the dump laws was precisely what I had been intending to blog about, but hadn’t had the time to get to. Well sure enough, in Nebraska, we appear to have the first case(?) of an ICWA claim in the wake of a “safe haven” legalized abandonment.

…Channel 6 News found out Wednesday the Cherokee Nation based in Oregon may have a legal claim to raise the Staton kids because they are part Native American.

(Also be sure to see the video related to the piece.)

Why haven’t we had an ICWA dump related claim before now? Perhaps because in most states abandoners are anonymous and the abandoned kids are not old enough to answer questions relating to their genealogy.

(Again, ‘aging down’ will not ’solve’ these problems. Changing Nebraska’s dump law to apply only to infants would only create a new state-created ‘pocket’ in which to hide crucial information such as a child’s genealogical background, information vital to an ICWA claim. Adoptees in closed adoptions, such as myself actually know a great deal about that, as we have no means by which to determine any First Nations ancestry we may or may not have.)

While I have been working on a longer post about the nine kids Gary Staton abandoned back on September 24th, and the aftermath of that abandonment;

• how the kids have ended up at the heart of legal battles,
• having to make difficult choices between remaining with their friends at their school, or staying as a family unit with the other kids,
• how it has played out across multiple states,
• and how it has played out between family members and Nebraska Health and Human Services,

but for the moment I’m going to set that saga aside to focus solely on the ICWA angle.

Bastard Nation, The Adoptee Rights Organization warned about how the dump laws circumvent ICWA early on, pointing out that such laws:

Contravene sections of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) which give tribes first custody rights in cases of child relinquishment.

Bastard Nation has brought the issue up many times in testimony trying to stop the dump laws. State after state, in enacting their dump laws have disregarded their obligations under ICWA.

I have also pointed out that dump laws short circuit ICWA claims in my own previous blogging. (While this particular post I’ve linked is primarily relating to Canadian First Nations children, some of whom were later adopted by American couples, it’s an important read as backgrounder and context to the history of how First Nations children have been actively resettled into white families. Dump laws must be understood within the broader context of forcible child removal as a means by which to cut off Tribes’ futures.) Bastardette has also pointed out the ICWA violation in relation to Nebraska’s dump law.

As an aside, Shea Grimm in her search series has also written about ICWA’s pertinence to sealed records adoptees’ attempts to regain access to their own records, see her section Using The Indian Child Welfare Act in a petition. Unfortunately this often ends up in the catch-22 of having to first know about your Native ancestry to to gain the information relating to your Native ancestry. But then, there’s very little about adoption that is logical and straightforward.

The First Nations Orphan Association is an important voice relating to issues of First Nations kids and adoption . Again, bear in mind such adoptions were often done within a context of non-consentuality. Large numbers of Native children were forcibly removed for adoption. ICWA was in part a response to those crimes committed. But now with the baby Moses laws/”Safe Haven” laws/baby dump laws, a new means of bypassing ICWA has been constructed, once again undermining Tribal rights.

The legalized abandonment laws continue that history of permanently removing children from their Tribal or genealogical heritage, far more so for the infant dumps than Nebraska’s older child dumps, as at least these older kids have perhaps some knowledge of their heritage. The dump laws provide an adoption intake path, wherein certainly for infants, questions of Tribal legal claims are never even raised, doing so in flagrant violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Tribes are not just ‘another player’ in the legal tug of war over kids, they are sovereign Nations. Cutting them out of the equation via the legalized abandonment laws is nothing more than once again creating a new way to circumvent their means to protect children’s identities and Tribal futures.

You want a four letter reason why legalized child abandonment laws must be REPEALED? ICWA.

Infant and anonymous dump laws are the bypass on ICWA.

Older child abandonments will only face ICWA challenges when Tribes have the resources and access to information to raise the claims, wrongly placing the burden of raising the claim on Tribes, rather than on the States who have obligations under ICWA.

Tinkering with age limits and other such details of these laws is not going to begin to deal with the fundamental flaws inherent to all dump laws.

Full REPEAL is the only answer.

***

We begin with the mother (along with an aunt and grandmother) who drove from Michigan to Nebraska to dump her son,

New twist in abandonment of 13-year-old in Nebraska/Prosecutor’s office files a neglect petition against Southfield family

turns out she was ALREADY under investigation back in Michigan prior to the abandonment.

The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office has filed a neglect petition against the Southfield family of the 13-year-old boy whose mother drove to Nebraska to abandon him under that state’s expansive and controversial safe haven law.

The filing was not released for public review before Oakland County Circuit Court closed for the day, but a hearing was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today, deputy court administrator Lisa Langton said.

While the mother is protected by Nebraska law, she could face charges in Michigan, where she and her husband have four other children. And local authorities and court records say the family already was being investigated before the teen was taken to Nebraska.

The case also is causing a rift between social services and law enforcement.

Southfield Police Chief Joseph Thomas Jr. said he and county Prosecutor David Gorcyca were upset that the Michigan Department of Human Services did not involve them immediately in a case where a child was taken across state lines.

She abandoned the boy at Omaha’s Creighton University Medical Center with luggage, extra clothes and $10.

Sadder still, this was a apparently another ‘teach ‘em a lesson’ dump. Not dissimilar to how parents have used the threat of and reality of juvenile hall in the past (see Mary E. Odem’s book “Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United States, 1885-1920″ for an excellent examination of how “delinquency” has historically been used against kids)

The boy told police his mother was stressed out and couldn’t deal with him anymore. He also she was trying to teach him a lesson. She has expressed remorse to Nebraska officials.

Apparently after driving 12 hours and legally abandoning her son to ‘teach him a lesson’ she is now sorry for having done so. Lovely.

This goes to the core of any legalized child abandonment law, how easy it becomes for events to unfurl rapidly. The kid will be dealing with such for the rest of his life, but for the adults involved, parents, legislators etc, it’s all about making it quick and easy.

And once again, we have private agencies in the midst of all of it:

As a student in Southfield Public Schools, the teen is “not a student with a bad profile,” and wasn’t known to be having difficulties according to Ken Siver, deputy superintendent.

But the family has files with both social services and law enforcement in Wayne and Oakland counties.

According to court records, in 2003, a neglect petition filed in Wayne County on behalf of the boy was denied. He also was prescribed mental health services for a delinquency charge in 2007.

In Southfield, both he and a sibling have open delinquency files, Thomas said.

A private agency tasked with placing the 13-year-old with relatives during a complaint “expressed concern about this child’s safety and remaining in the family in any way,” said Janet Snyder, executive director for Michigan Federation for Children and Families, a child-serving agency advocacy group.

Undoubtedly we will be hearing much much more about this case.

It’s important to keep in mind, though that the only reason we know that the mother was under investigation back in Michigan is because Nebraska’s dump law, unlike many states, does not have anonymous abandoners, and the that in Nebraska, unlike any other state, the dumped kid is old enough to speak for himself.

Had this happened in another state, with anonymous abandoners and a baby being dumped, no questions would be asked, the baby would simply enter the adoption stream and the dumper would go on about their life.

Which is to say baby-dumps can be used to cover all kinds of things.

‘Aging down’ a legalized child abandonment law is no solution. ‘Aging down’ merely increases the number of things that can be hidden under a dump law.

***

In a separate second story we learn of an Iowa woman who has scheduled a protest in Nebraska today:

An Iowa woman angry about Nebraska’s safe haven law is staging a protest at Creighton University in Omaha.

Judi Wheeldon of Council Bluffs, Iowa, said she hopes the protest, scheduled for 5 p.m. today, will help convince state lawmakers to convene and put an age limit in the law before the regular legislative session starts in January.

(Also see Lawmakers Not Ready For Special Session)

Iowa, of course has a baby-dump law. Targeting Creighton, which is merely a state designated intake center for the dumped kids is ultimately pretty pointless. It’s Nebraska lawmakers, not hospitals who decide the fate of this disastrous law.

If all Ms. Wheeldon is calling for is the aged down version, then the effect is that of calling for another shade of lipstick on the same old pig. Not calling for a fundamental change in the law, instead, merely a tweeking to make Nebraska’s look more like Iowa’s.

As I’ve said in all these posts about the Nebraska mess, the only real solution is a full REPEAL of the dumps laws.

Anything less just means a continuation of the current status quo, that of state’s continuing their sad and shameful course of action, encouraging child abandonment.