A 6-year-old girl was whisked away from her foster family in Santa Clarita on Monday after the family’s repeated efforts could not prevent her from being placed with her relatives in Utah, as ordered by a court.
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“Our hearts are broken and we are trying to make sense of everything that has happened with our three children who witnessed their sister Lexi forcefully ripped from our family by strangers”, the Page Family said in a statement.
Rusty says that he has petitioned elected officials and has filed for emergency relief from the California Supreme Court.
Middleton added that Lexi’s family in Utah had been in weekly contact with her for years.
“I want to assure the public that my Department will continue to act in the best interest of the children we serve and remain in compliance with the court orders and laws governing our work”, he said in a written statement.
The law, passed in the 1970s, aims to “protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families”. The family members are not Native American, or blood relatives of Lexi’s, say locals, who opposed the decision. Lexi’s sister is now living with the couple, and another sister will be living down the street.
Two women and a man – at least one of whom was an L.A. County social worker – knocked on the Page family’s door in Saugus about 2:30 p.m. About 10 minutes later, the girl was carried to a vehicle by her foster father as his wife screamed “Lexi, I love you!” and another girl with her screamed “No!” amid sounds of a child crying. The Pages were Lexi’s third foster parents after her birth mother was deemed unfit to be afforded custody while her birth father had a history of crime. Lexi and the Utah family had traded messages and monthly visits over the past three years, said Leslie Heimov, Lexi’s court-appointed legal representative. “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”.
“It would be fairly extraordinary for an appeals court to reverse that”, he said.
The National Indian Child Welfare Association told the Los Angeles Daily News that it was disturbed by the recent negative media attention surrounding the “attempted reunification of a child with her family in Utah”.
The Pages noted that the case “shines a bright light on the ways in which the [Indian Child Welfare Act] in its current form is routinely being misinterpreted, with devastating consequences for families and children”.
Hand said earlier in his open letter letter that he and his wife and children have regularly interacted with Lexi over the past four years and that he has seen the foster child “blossom into an intelligent, respectful, happy, adventurous little girl”.
Despite all the delays, the Choctaw Nation can report that Lexi is safely home with her loving family and her sisters, and she is doing well. Lexi, meanwhile, did not officially belong to any tribe.
It appears the foster family and their counsel are attempting to turn Lexi’s case into a political call to arms to dismantle ICWA. “This trauma that it’s caused this child is not the fault of anyone except the Pages”, Middleton said.
Other children in their home sobbed and screeched.
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A central issue stems from Lexi’s heritage, which has stirred up questions about which family is best suited to raise her.
