Utah’s version of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act has once again stalled in the Legislature.
Around two dozen Indigenous Utahns from some of the state’s eight federally recognized tribes gathered at the capitol on Feb. 21, to call on lawmakers to pass the latest version of the bill.
“Here we are as tribes united and confronting the state to say this is the time, this is the year,” Autumn Gillard, a member of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, told KUER. “We want to take control of our own rights and our own children, and we're very capable of doing that.”
HB30, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Angela Romero, would enshrine ICWA into state law. The federal law passed by Congress in 1978 prioritizes the placement of Indigenous children in the foster care or adoption system with Indigenous families.
The congressional action was a response to the forced removal of Native American children from their homes, often without reason, who were then placed in government-operated residential boarding schools or with non-Native families. Former President Joe Biden apologized to tribes last year for the country’s 150-year boarding school policy.
The constitutionality of the law was challenged but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal act in 2023. Native Americans in Utah were relieved by the decision. Some hoped the ruling would incentivize lawmakers to codify a state version of the policy.
“Montana's codified, other red states have codified. So this isn't a red state, blue state thing, or a Republican or a Democrat thing,” Romero, who also recently learned she is Shoshone-Bannock, said. “This is a matter of respecting the Supreme Court decision and making sure that we're doing the best we can for children that are in foster care and are going to be adopted.”
LaTosha Mayo, another Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah member, said ratifying ICWA into state code is about keeping families together and identities alive. Indigenous children who are separated from their culture lose knowledge of who they are and where they came from, she said. If the Legislature chose to do so, Mayo said they could reinforce the continued support of the Indigenous peoples in Utah.
“To have the people who represent us at a legislative level to be able to really help us and support us and say, ‘Hey, I see you,’ it means a lot to us,” she said. “It tells us that they understand where we're coming from and the importance of us keeping our kids with our Indigenous families, so they can continue to have their identity, so they can continue to grow in our society, and they can continue to be people that really pushes us forward as a state, as a community.”
The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah worked with Romero and other state leaders to draft the legislation — but added it faces roadblocks in the House. While it unanimously passed out of an interim committee in November, the bill hasn’t moved. It’s been stuck in the Rules Committee – the first step in the legislative process where bills are assigned to a committee – since the start of the 2025 legislative session on Jan. 21.
Republican Rep. Jordan Teuscher, the House Rules Chair, did not respond to KUER’s request for comment about the bill’s status.
This isn’t the first time a state version of ICWA has faced obstacles.
In 2023, Republican Rep. Christine Watkins sponsored a similar bill. All eight of Utah’s federally recognized tribes were on board. So was the Governor’s Office and former Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes. The bill was held in committee, despite promises it would be heard again.
Back then, some lawmakers were concerned that the state was acting preemptively. Republican Rep. Karianne Lisonbee said in a 2023 committee hearing that the Legislature should wait to codify until the Supreme Court made its ruling.
Now that it has been upheld, Romero believes there’s another reason the bill has been delayed.
“I think there are some members in the chamber who don't agree with the Supreme Court ruling,” Romero said. “It's unfortunate because they just don't see the need for ICWA to be codified at a state level.”
If the bill makes it out of the Rules Committee before the end of the session on March 7, Romero said it would likely be placed on the House Judiciary Committee agenda. She said it’s likely to face opposition there, too, because the vice chair of the committee, Republican Rep. Nelson Abbott, has revisions that “are not at the same standard as ICWA as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“So why do a bill that's going to weaken the standards already set by the federal government?” she asked.
Romero isn’t confident the bill will make it to the governor’s desk by the end of the session. But if she needs to hand off the legislation to a Republican colleague next year to get it across the finish line, she will.
Darren Parry, former chairman of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation, spent a lot of time at the capitol during the 2023 legislative session advocating for its passage. He said he’s frustrated over the Legislature’s inability to approve some resemblance of ICWA. Even though it’s federal law, Parry said there should be something in Utah’s code that provides direction on where Indigenous children should be housed when they enter foster care or the adoption process.
Although Native Americans make up 2.6% of the state's population according to 2023 census data, the Utah Division of Child and Family Services reported that 4.5% of the state’s protective removals in fiscal year 2024 were Native children.
Parry said codifying ICWA is more than protecting Indigenous families and allowing them to set up governing boards that handle these adoption cases.
“It just ensures, I think, on a deeper level, the state's commitment to honoring Indigenous sovereignty and their right to self-determine.”
He thinks if the Legislature wanted to pass the bill they would do so unanimously. But that’s not the mood on Utah’s Capitol Hill.
“I think to a lot of them, it's a non-issue, even though I think it would strengthen in the long run to have the state support it,” he said. “I think there's just apathy towards anything Native American.”
Mayo and Gillard wonder if the hesitation goes beyond apathy. It would be an acknowledgment of the state’s historic wrongs to Indigenous communities, like the boarding schools.
“Acknowledging it helps the trauma that has been caused, and it helps us move on together,” she said. “And that's the biggest thing – is that we are trying to move on together.”
For Gillard, it would also be a recognition of the lack of autonomy Native Americans have been given to care for their own.
“It is a trust responsibility that the state should be providing to tribes to ensure that we have the rights and abilities as tribal sovereign nations to care and raise our own children in healthy and happy homes.”
