This article from Vice highlights the need for more Native foster carers in the United States and the issues that arise when Native children are placed in the care of non-Native foster parents. Native children in the United States, according to the article, are overrepresented in the child welfare system "at a rate 2.7 times greater than their proportion in the general population." With a disproportionate number of Native children being placed into foster care and a shortage of Native foster carers, many Native children end up in the care of non-Native carers. "Sometimes, those foster parents decide they want to adopt the foster child even though the law is supposed to prevent virtually all such non-Native adoptions." This has led to several highly contested custody battles and disputes, says the article.
The article describes the history and context of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), passed in response to mass removals of Native American children from their families and communities of origin, which resulted in psychological trauma and the threat of "tribal extinction."