Tribe Wins an Adoption Role, but It’s Limited

An appellate court ruled Friday that an Aleut Indian tribe may intervene in an attempt by a former tribe member from Cypress to let a non-Indian couple adopt her 2-year-old daughter.

But the justices also issued stiff guidelines to a lower court that could make it impossible for the Aleuts to succeed in placing the child with a tribal family.

“The appellate court’s directions are so specific, it’s pretty clear to me they are saying the Indian tribe is not going to ever get that child,” said Sylvia L. Paoli, the Tustin lawyer appointed by the court to represent the child’s interests.

The child’s mother, Jodi Argleben, 20, gave birth out of wedlock in 1989. She wants her daughter, Rebecca, to be adopted by a couple in Vancouver, Canada. The Aleuts want the baby to be placed with an Indian family in Argleben’s native village of Akhiok on Kodiak Island, Alaska.

The baby has lived with the unidentified Vancouver couple for more than a year while the custody battle continued through the courts.

“It’s certainly not in the child’s best interests to be uprooted now,” Paoli said. “It’s not a matter of whether British Columbia is a better environment for the child than where the Indians live. The issue is, she has formed a bond with the couple she’s with now. It would destroy her life if that were interrupted.”

But Jack F. Trope, attorney for the Assn. of American Indian Affairs in New York City, who represents the Aleuts, said the important issue is “to protect the child’s Indian heritage.”

“There is a tribal couple that wanted to adopt the child long before she was sent to British Columbia,” he said.

Trope said he is not ready to agree with Paoli’s interpretation of the justices’ ruling because he has not yet seen the text of the opinion.

Superior Court Judge Robert J. Polis ruled in February, 1990, that the tribe has no standing to intervene in the adoption.

But in Friday’s opinion by the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal, Justice Henry T. Moore Jr. stated: “The interests of the tribe under (federal law) are sufficiently important to support allowing it to join this proceeding.”

However, Moore stated, because time is critical, the appellate court would give specific guidelines to Judge Polis so the case can be resolved as quickly as possible.

Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr. dissented, stating that the law made it so clear that the child should not be returned to the tribe that it is futile even to send the case back to the lower court.

“The law severely limits the (tribe’s) prerogatives in the case of Indians not domiciled on a reservation,” Crosby said. “She (Rebecca) has never lived on a reservation and is not part of an Indian family broken up by removal.”

Argleben’s attorney, Christian R. Van Deusen of Santa Ana, agreed with Paoli that while the appellate court’s opinion would appear on the surface to be a victory for the tribe, its directions can be helpful only to Argleben and the couple in Vancouver.

“There is no way that she is going to let that child go to that island,” Van Deusen said. “It’s a barren place with permafrost most of the year. She isn’t going to let that happen.”

Argleben has stated that she will raise the girl herself rather than allow anyone to adopt the toddler if the Indian tribe is allowed to control the adoption. Justice Crosby noted that position in his dissent.

“The tribe should not be permitted to further delay the child’s adoption by additional litigation,” Crosby said.

According to court documents, Argleben was removed from the tribe, along with her sister, when she was 3 years old after complaints that they had been abused. Jodi Argleben was then adopted by a Cypress couple.

She became pregnant by a non-Indian boyfriend in 1988 and gave birth in June, 1989. She first tried to place the baby with a New York couple for adoption, but the action caused controversy.

When the New York couple’s attorney informed the Akhiok tribe of the pending adoption, the child’s great-uncle applied to the tribal council to have Rebecca accepted as a member of the tribe. A month later, the council granted the request.

Shortly after that, Argleben sent the tribe a letter renouncing her rights stemming from her biological heritage in a bid to ensure that nothing interfered with the New York couple’s adopting the child.

The New York couple, however, decided against adoption, and Argleben took the child to the Vancouver couple.

Argleben’s attorneys must now decide whether to appeal the appellate decision, ask the justices to reconsider or accept the panel’s directives to the lower court, which they consider favorable to the mother’s efforts.

Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978 because so many Indian children were being taken off reservations and placed in non-Indian homes. The act grants tribes control in child custody proceedings.