'The tribe's values of faith, family and culture are what makes our tribal identity so important to us. Lexi has also been on extended visits to Utah. (Page 1 Court of Appeals decision), Lexis birth-mother has a lengthy substance abuse problem & her birth-father has an extensive criminal history. "There's no doubt in my mind that what happened . Please help! he pleaded before a gaggle of news cameras assembled in the driveway. Aug 26, 2016. 19802023 The Christian Science Monitor. A little girl was taken away from her longtime foster family, who was in the process of adopting her, because she is 1/64 Native American, reported NBC News. What happened yesterday should never happen . Were run by a church, but were not only for church members and were not about converting people. For roughly a century, nativechildren were routinely taken from their communities and forced to attend boarding schoolsrun by non-nativestaff trying to assimilate children into white culture, punishing them for using their mother languages and limiting contact with their families. unless you renew or Picture of the Choctaw Native Indian The above picture depicts Mushulatubbee, meaning "Determined to Kill" who was a Chief of the Choctaw. To the Pages, who say that Lexi has thrived under their care, removing her now will rob her of the very stability the law is meant to provide for children. Leslie Heimov of the Childrens Law Center of California, which is representing Lexi since she is a foster child, said that the court has decided the girl should be placed with the biological fathers relatives in Utah, including the girls sister who is living with the Utah couple. She will live with a Utah couple who are not Native Americans but are related by marriage to her father. 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.. When the minister tried to adopt her, the Spirit Lake Sioux tribe invoked the ICWA, and Laurynn was sent to a reservation and the custody of her grandfather. Please read the uncontested facts of the case from the Court of Appeal's 2013 ruling that over-turned the trial court's erroneous decision. Still, Choctaw Nation officials said in a statement that Lexi is now in a safe, loving home with her distantrelatives andherbiological sisters. In the days since Lexi was removed from the Southern California home, her foster parents have continued to fightthe decision. In Lexi's "We Broke Up" video, she joked around about the split before confirming that it was true. pltsligt trngre frhud; skarvdon robotgrsklippare jula; fiskecamp hlsingland By September 2012, he declined further reunification services. Her father has a criminal record, and her mother, who is not nativeAmerican, has substance abuse problems. The girl is 1/64thChoctaw Native American, meaning her case falls under the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law that claims to promote tribal families by keeping Native American children with Native American families. Select stories from the Monitor that empower and uplift. Dont let me go, Lexis foster father, Rusty, said after the heart-wrenching moment. You may recognize 23-year-old Lexi Hensler from your TikTok "For You" Page, or that time she picked a boyfriend for her best friend, Pierson Wodzynski, on Bestie Picks Bae. Choctaw Stickball PlayerThe Choctaw Indians once lay claim to millions of acres of land and established some 50 towns in present-day Mississippi and western Alabama. Todays civil rights movement is so different from the 60s, Israel has angered its closest supporters. Mr. Thousands of people died along the way. The child had been placed with the Page family since she was two but was removed in March under the act. The brutal racial politics of the Indian Child Welfare Act, Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates. Under the watchful eye of various cell phone cameras, social workers stood outside the front door of the home while the family prepared for the girl's departure. The legacy of that system is still felt on reservations today. The Pages have been fighting that decision for several years, and want to adopt Lexi, but an appeals court found they "had not proven by clear and convincing evidence that it was a certainty the child would suffer emotional harm by the transfer." The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective. Rusty Page carries Lexi as Summer Page cries in background as family services, left, arrives to take Lexi away from her foster family. We are appealing the decision, and we have asked the state Supreme Court to step in and halt this hasty change in custody before it causes irreparable harm. But nobody could possibly be more devastated than our 6-year-old daughter, who found herself restrained in a car and driven away to go and live in a foreign place hundreds of miles from her family, friends, teachers, home and life.. 23:09 GMT 21 Mar 2016 If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. ICWAs Good Cause Exception was specifically written by Congress to allow courts to place Indian children outside of the ICWAs placement preferences. Order Now. We will continue to pursue the appeal, and we will press on the U.S. Supreme Court if that becomes necessary, Ms. Alvino McGill said. What happened yesterday should never happen . decades of broken traditions and communities. The courts have decided that Lexi will live with non-Native American relatives of her birth father through marriage. Because Lexi is part native-american the Department of Children and Family Services may remove her from her current home and place her with a native american family. They do not get the same best-interest-of-the-child standard that applies to all other children," the Pages' legal team said in its statement. Rusty choked back tears as he pleaded with Child Welfare Service not to break up his family early Monday. In the meantime, our clients hope that the family in Utah will follow through on their promise to keep Lexi in contact with her family in Los Angeles. Overcome with grief her turned from the crowd: 'That's all I can say.'. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Lexi, who is 1/64 Choctaw, was taken from her foster home north of Los Angeles in a tearful parting in March and placed with extended family in Utah under a decades-old federal law designed to . The child is usually taken by a social worker or in better situations, a family member is waiting for the child to take her to her new home. Once the episode of Below Deck Mediterranean where Lexi Wilson got fired aired on Peacock, the former stew took to Instagram in a since-deleted post to call out the show's production. A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events. L.A.-based American rock band Steel Panther recently said goodbye to long-time member and bassist Lexxi Foxx. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Because Lexi is part Choctaw Indian, officials are seeking to place her with extended relatives of her Native American father. Lexi is 1/64th Choctaw on her fathers side, according to court documents, which also note that she was 17 months old when she was removed from her birth parents custody. 16:21 GMT 22 Mar 2016. Your subscription to The Pages have fostered beforebut despite accusations, had a good relationship with the biological father & had no intention of adopting. 'This little girl, we are her home. In many institutions, abuse was rampant. The Christian Science Monitor has expired. The foster family was well aware years ago this girl is an Indian child, whose case is subject to the requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), and who has relatives who were willing to raise her if reunification with her father was unsuccessful, the organization said in a statement. She said she could not say which of the two scenarios occurred Monday. Protesters spent the night wrapped up in sleeping bags and in tents outside the Page's Santa home on Sunday. It demotes the best interests of the child from the top priority; it makes a childs relationship with a tribe supremely important. Her mother had been accused of substance abuse and her father had a criminal history, according to court records. (Page 10), The Pages were granted De Facto status in 2013, giving them a voice in the court. The three divisions each had some distinguishing cultural practices, which may indicate they had separate origins and that the Choctaw came . She was 17 months old when she was removed from the custody of her biological mother, who had a substance abuse problem. Lexi is 1.5% Choctaw, Fox 11 reported. If you have questions about your account, please (Page 1 & Page 9 footnote), The tribe agreed to Lexis placement with the Page family while her birth-father reunified, there was no concurrent plan. Minneapolis's innovative attempt to help homeless kids, Don't arrest teen prostitutes, LA County says. We are extremely disappointed that (L.A. Countys Department of Children and Family Services) would remove this little girl from her home while our appeal is pending, she said. Summer and Rusty raised Lexi for the last five years and spent the last two-and-a-half trying to adopt her with no success. The tribal authorities decided that Lexi will live in Utah . The Page family recently launched a Change.org petition about the case that garnered more than 40,000 signatures from around the world as of Monday afternoon. Where is Lexi page now 2021? Copyright 2023 KABC Television, LLC. ", 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. But the court then declined the request last week pending appeal, McGill said. I come outside to cry and go back inside to play in the backyard with them,' he said. Less than six weeks later she was dead, having been thrown down an embankment by the grandfathers wife, who had a record of child abuse. (Page 28). Rescue them. Before enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being removed from their Indian homes and placed in non-Indian homes, with presumably the absence of Indian culture. In preparation for Oklahoma statehood (1907), some of this land was allotted to individuals from the Five Civilized Tribes; the rest was opened up to white homesteaders, held in trust by the federal government, or allotted to freed slaves. Lexi was ripped away from the only family she has ever known because of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Her paternal grandmother informed the court that he was . Your session to The Christian An online petitionintendedto put pressure on state authorities has more than 100,000 signatures, and a GoFundMe page has raised nearly$35,000 for the foster family. Staff Photographer David Crane contributed to this report. VIDEO: Rusty Page of Santa Clarita speaks about DCFS placing foster daughter Lexi, 6, in Utah, Philip Browning, director of the DCFS, said the law does not allow him to comment on details regarding specific children. Everyone except DCFS social worker, Roberta Javier, who felt there would be no trauma breaking Lexis primary bond & attachment. The department did not officially request expedited placement until November 2012, one year after Lexi was placed with the Pages & thoroughly bonded/attached. (Page 8), It was not until after reunification services that the Pages began to pursue adoption, that was when the DCFS social worker first brought up the family in Utah. 'As a matter of simple human decency, we implore the county not to prematurely take Lexi from her home,' Rusty said between sobs as he read from a statement. The Choctaw Nation has advocated for Lexi to live with her family since 2011, the tribe saidin a statement. The foster parents have appealed the court order issued earlier this month affirming the child was to be placed with the Utah couple. These relatives have been a part of Lexi's life for almost five years. The world-wide cri de cur seems to be of 1/64th (1.5%) not "being enough" to be Choctaw despite the fact that Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma no . The demonstrators were trying to prevent the DCF from coming overnight to remove six-year-old Lexi from Summer and Rusty's care. Not under ICWA. The horrible crash happened Monday afternoon just after 3:30 p.m. in an area of rural Collinsville near North Bluff Road. I was explaining to him that the women "give it up" much easier than in his day, and do shit ya didn't even talk about back then as a matter of of course. California's two different visions for better foster care. In the 1830s the Choctaw were forced to move to what is now Oklahoma, as were the other members of the Five Civilized Tribesthe Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Seminole. Despite ICWA, nativechildren in state custody are often placed with non-Native families. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Choctaw, North American Indian tribe of Muskogean linguistic stock that traditionally lived in what is now southeastern Mississippi. Authorities say Lexi and three other young girls were on a utility task . On March 9, Rusty and Summer Page appealed afamily courts decision to send Lexitolive with her Utah relatives, and the court granted a temporary stay, the familys attorney,Lori Alvino McGill, told The Post. Take our quiz. This message will appear once per week Beaten again, he died a month after returning to his mother. We Because Lexi is part native-american the Department of Children and Family Services may remove her from her current home and place her with a native american family. Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. Declan was 5 in 2007 when he was beaten to death by his mothers live-in boyfriend. How is it that a screaming child, saying, I want to stay, Im scared how is it in her best interest to pull her from the girl she was before that doorbell rang? Rusty Page told radio station KNX, according to the Associated Press. Court documents state that the extended family members in Utah are not Native American. They have maintained a relationship with her, visiting her in California, making regular SKYPE calls, and Lexi has also been on extended visits to Utah. Summer Page hasNative American heritage formally traced & accepted by her tribe, the Southern Band Tuscarora Indians. By age2, Lexi hadbeen placed with the Pages. McGill said a social workernotified the Pages onWednesday that Lexi had safely reached herUtah home, though thats all theyve heard.. Beyond fear, beyond anger. Keep Lexi home: A foster familys wrenching fight for a 6-year-old Choctaw girl. Until recently, however, her father was trying to regain custody. So, the ICWAs sacrifice of individual rights to group entitlements probably has a diminished power to shock. Here is what was stated in the COA document: " The tribe consented to the girl's placement with a non-Indian foster family to facilitate efforts to reunify the girl with her father.". The Monitor is a peculiar little publication thats hard for the world to figure out. The girl's sister is living with the couple, and another sister will be living down the street, said Leslie Heimov of the Children's Law Center of California, Lexi's court-appointed legal representatives. Heimov told the Daily News thatLexi has one sister who lives with the relatives in Utah and another sister who will livenearby. After telling each other that there would always be love and support between them, Lexi and Ben got into the reasoning for their split. The law has led to some emotional, high-profile cases, including one in 2016 in which a court ordered that a young Choctaw girl named Lexi be removed from a California foster family and placed with her father's extended family in Utah. The little girl has a tiny bit of Choctaw ancestry just 1.5 percent and under federal law the Choctaw Nation can decide her fate. When Lexi was carried into the vehicle that drove off, scores of neighbors, friends and relatives looked on. Authorities are taking the child to relatives of her birth father, who live in Utah. And Im going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in. Motivational influencer "Laughing Lexi" has gone missing. 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., VIDEO: Lexi, who is part Choctaw, is taken away from her foster family in Santa Clarita. After drugs were found in the vehicle, Lexi took the blame and was immediately cut from the Navarro College cheerleading squad. Lexi will be sent to live with extended Choctaw family members in Utah, authorities said. In 2015, this column acquainted readers with Declan Stewart and Laurynn Whiteshield. Save Lexi. 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