Non-Indian Couple Can Adopt Indian, Court Rules

A state appeals court ruled that a 5-year-old Native American child can be adopted by a non-Indian couple, dealing a blow to advocates who say tribes should determine the futures of such children.

The Friday decision by a three-judge Court of Appeal panel in Santa Ana also limits the circumstances in which tribes can use a 1978 law allowing them to intervene when Native American children are placed with adoptive parents.

The ruling involved the case of Alexandra Torres, who was exposed to drugs and abandoned at birth by her mother.

“It’s great news,” said Leland Sterling, attorney for the girl’s adoptive parents, Maria and Isidro Torres. “I thought this would still be going around by the time Alex graduated college.”

And it could. The decision probably will be appealed by the Seminole tribe of Oklahoma, which asserted its jurisdiction over the case because she is part Seminole.

Attorneys on all sides say the girl is in no danger of being taken from the Torreses.

Born in December 1990, Alexandra tested positive for cocaine. Her mother disappeared as Orange County social workers took custody of the infant in the hospital. The girl was placed with the Torres family in the summer of 1991.

Nearly a year later, the girl’s birth mother resurfaced and told social workers that she is largely Latino, but part Seminole.