Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians v. Holyfield

490 U.S. 30, 109 S. Ct. 1597, 104 L. Ed. 2d 29, 1989 U.S. LEXIS 1791, 57 U.S.L.W. 4409

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 3, 1989
• Docket: 87-980
• Status: Published

Opinions

Justice Brennan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This appeal requires us to construe the provisions of the Indian Child Welfare Act that establish exclusive tribal jurisdiction over child custody proceedings involving Indian children domiciled on the tribe’s reservation.

I

A

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA), 92 Stat. 3069, 25 U. S. C. §§ 1901-1963, was the product of rising concern in the mid-1970’s over the consequences to Indian children, Indian families, and Indian tribes of abusive child welfare practices that resulted in the separation of large numbers of Indian children from their families and tribes through adoption or foster care placement, usually in non-Indian homes. Senate oversight hearings in 1974 yielded numerous examples, statistical data, and expert testimony documenting what one witness called “[t]he wholesale removal of Indian children from their homes, . . . the most tragic aspect of-Indian life today.” Indian Child Welfare Program, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., 3 (statement of William Byler) (hereinafter 1974 Hearings). Studies undertaken by the Association on American Indian Affairs in 1969 and 1974, and presented in the Senate hearings, showed that 25 to 35% of all Indian children had been separated from their families and placed in adoptive families, foster care, or institutions. Id., at 15; see also H. R. Rep. No. 95-1386, p. 9 (1978) (hereinafter House Report). Adoptive placements counted significantly in this total: in the State of Minnesota, for example, one in eight Indian children under the age of 18 was in an adoptive home, and during the year 1971-1972 nearly one in every four infants under one year of age was placed for adoption. The adoption rate of Indian children was eight times that of non-Indian children. Approximately 90% of the Indian placements were in non-Indian homes. 1974 Hearings, at 75-83. A number of witnesses also testified to the serious adjustment problems encountered by such children diming adolescence,¹ as well as the impact of the adoptions on Indian parents and the tribes themselves. See generally 1974 Hearings.

Further hearings, covering much the same ground, were held during 1977 and 1978 on the bill that became the ICWA.² While much of the testimony again focused on the harm to Indian parents and their children who were involuntarily separated by decisions of local welfare authorities, there was also considerable emphasis on the impact on the tribes themselves of the massive removal of their children. For example, Mr. Calvin Isaac, Tribal Chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and representative of the National Tribal Chairmen’s Association, testified as follows:

“Culturally, the chances of Indian survival are significantly reduced if our children, the only real means for the transmission of the tribal heritage, are to be raised in non-Indian homes and denied exposure to the ways of their People. Furthermore, these practices seriously undercut the tribes’ ability to continue as self-governing communities. Probably in no area is it more important that tribal sovereignty be respected than in an area as socially and culturally determinative as family relationships.” 1978 Hearings, at 193.

See also id., at 62.³ Chief Isaac also summarized succinctly what numerous witnesses saw as the principal reason for the high rates of removal of Indian children:

“One of the most serious failings of the present system is that Indian children are removed from the custody of their natural parents by nontribal government authorities who have no basis for intelligently evaluating the cultural and social premises underlying Indian home life and childrearing. Many of the individuals who decide the fate of our children are at best ignorant of our cultural values, and at worst contemptful of the Indian way and convinced that removal, usually to a non-Indian household or institution, can only benefit an Indian child.” Id., at 191-192.⁴

The congressional findings that were incorporated into the ICWA reflect these sentiments. The Congress found:

“(3) that there is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children . . . ;

“(4) that an alarmingly high percentage of Indian families are broken up by the removal, often unwarranted, of their children from them by nontribal public and private agencies and that an alarmingly high percentage of such children are placed in non-Indian foster and adoptive homes and institutions; and

“(5) that the States, exercising their recognized jurisdiction over Indian child custody proceedings through administrative and judicial bodies, have often failed to recognize the essential tribal relations of Indian people and the cultural and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and families.” 25 U. S. C. §1901.

At the heart of the ICWA are its provisions concerning jurisdiction over Indian child custody proceedings. Section 1911 lays out a dual jurisdictional scheme. Section 1911(a) establishes exclusive jurisdiction in the tribal courts for proceedings concerning an Indian child “who resides or is domiciled within the reservation of such tribe,” as well as for wards of tribal courts regardless of domicile.⁵ Section 1911(b), on the other hand, creates concurrent but presumptively tribal jurisdiction in the case of children not domiciled on the reservation: on petition of either parent or the tribe, state-court proceedings for foster care placement or termination of parental rights are to be transferred to the tribal court, except in cases of “good cause,” objection by either parent, or declination of jurisdiction by the tribal court.

Various other provisions of ICWA Title I set procedural and substantive standards for those child custody proceedings that do take place in state court. The procedural safeguards include requirements concerning notice and appointment of counsel; parental and tribal rights of intervention and petition for invalidation of illegal proceedings; procedures governing voluntary consent to termination of parental rights; and a full faith and credit obligation in respect to tribal court decisions. See §§ 1901-1914. The most important substantive requirement imposed on state courts is that of § 1915(a), which, absent “good cause” to the contrary, mandates that adoptive placements be made preferentially with (1) members of the child’s extended family, (2) other members of the same tribe, or (3) other Indian families.

The ICWA thus, in the words of the House Report accompanying it, “seeks to protect the rights of the Indian child as an Indian and the rights of the Indian community and tribe in retaining its children in its society.” House Report, at 23. It does so by establishing “a Federal policy that, where possible, an Indian child should remain in the Indian community,” ibid., and by making sure that Indian child welfare determinations are not based on “a white, middle-class standard which, in many cases, forecloses placement with [an] Indian family.” Id., at 24.⁶

B

This case involves the status of twin babies, known for our purposes as B. B. and G. B., who were born out of wedlock on December 29, 1985. Their mother, J. B., and father, W. J., were both enrolled members of appellant Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Tribe), and were residents and domiciliaries of the Choctaw Reservation in Neshoba County, Mississippi. J. B. gave birth to the twins in Gulfport, Harrison County, Mississippi, some 200 miles from the reservation. On January 10, 1986, J. B. executed a consent-to-adoption form before the Chancery Court of Harrison County. Record 8-10.⁷ W. J. signed a similar form.⁸ On January 16, appellees Orrey and Vivian Holyfield⁹ filed a petition for adoption in the same court, id., at 1-5, and the chancellor issued a Final Decree of Adoption on January 28. Id., at 13-14.¹⁰ Despite the court’s apparent awareness of the ICWA,¹¹ the adoption decree contained no reference to it, nor to the infants’ Indian background.

Two months later the Tribe moved in the Chancery Court to vacate the adoption decree on the ground that under the ICWA exclusive jurisdiction was vested in the tribal court. Id., at 15-18.¹² On July 14,1986, the court overruled the motion, holding that the Tribe “never obtained exclusive jurisdiction over the children involved herein . . . The court’s one-page opinion relied on two facts in reaching that conclusion. The court noted first that the twins’ mother “went to some efforts to see that they were born outside the confines of the Choctaw Indian Reservation” and that the parents had promptly arranged for the adoption by the Holyfields. Second, the court stated: “At no time from the birth of these children to the present date have either of them resided on or physically been on the Choctaw Indian Reservation.” Id., at 78.

The Supreme Court of Mississippi affirmed. 511 So. 2d 918 (1987). It rejected the Tribe’s arguments that the state court lacked jurisdiction and that it, in any event, had not applied the standards laid out in the ICWA. The court recognized that the jurisdictional question turned on whether the twins were domiciled on the Choctaw Reservation. It answered that question as follows:

“At no point in time can it be said the twins resided on or were domiciled within the territory set aside for the reservation. Appellant’s argument that living within the womb of their mother qualifies the children’s residency on the reservation may be lauded for its creativity; however, apparently it is unsupported by any law within this state, and will not be addressed at this time due to the far-reaching legal ramifications that would occur were we to follow such a complicated tangential course.” Id., at 921.

The court distinguished Mississippi cases that appeared to establish the principle that “the domicile of minor children follows that of the parents,” ibid.; see Boyle v. Griffin, 84 Miss. 41, 36 So. 141 (1904); Stubbs v. Stubbs, 211 So. 2d 821 (Miss. 1968); see also In re Guardianship of Watson, 317 So. 2d 30 (Miss. 1976). It noted that “the Indian twins . . . were voluntarily surrendered and legally abandoned by the natural parents to the adoptive parents, and it is undisputed that the parents went to some efforts to prevent the children from being placed on the reservation as the mother arranged for their birth and adoption in Gulfport Memorial Hospital, Harrison County, Mississippi.” 611 So. 2d, at 921. Therefore, the court said, the twins’ domicile was in Harrison County and the state court properly exercised jurisdiction over the adoption proceedings. Indeed, the court appears to have concluded that, for this reason, none of the provisions of the ICWA was applicable. Ibid. (“[T]hese proceedings ... actually escape applicable federal law on Indian Child Welfare”). In any case, it rejected the Tribe’s contention that the requirements of the ICWA applicable in state courts had not been followed: “[T]he judge did conform and strictly adhere to the minimum federal standards governing adoption of Indian children with respect to parental consent, notice, service of process, etc.” Ibid.13

Because of the centrality of the exclusive tribal jurisdiction provision to the overall scheme of the ICWA, as well as the conflict between this decision of the Mississippi Supreme Court and those of several other state courts,¹⁴ we granted plenary review. 486 U. S. 1021 (1988).¹⁵ We now reverse.

r — i I — I

Tribal jurisdiction over Indian child custody proceedings is not a novelty of the ICWA. Indeed, some of the ICWA’s jurisdictional provisions have a strong basis in pre-ICWA case law in the federal and state courts. See, e. g., Fisher v. District Court, Sixth Judicial District of Montana, 424 U. S. 382 (1976) (per curiam) (tribal court had exclusive jurisdiction over adoption proceeding where all parties were tribal members and reservation residents); Wisconsin Potowatomies of Hannahville Indian Community v. Houston, 393 F. Supp. 719 (WD Mich. 1973) (tribal court had exclusive jurisdiction over custody of Indian children found to have been domiciled on reservation); Wakefield v. Little Light, 276 Md. 333, 347 A. 2d 228 (1975) (same); In re Adoption of Buehl, 87 Wash. 2d 649, 555 P. 2d 1334 (1976) (state court lacked jurisdiction over custody of Indian children placed in off-reservation foster care by tribal court order); see also In re Lelah-puc-ka-chee, 98 F. 429 (ND Iowa 1899) (state court lacked jurisdiction to appoint guardian for Indian child living on reservation). In enacting the ICWA Congress confirmed that, in child custody proceedings involving Indian children domiciled on the reservation, tribal jurisdiction was exclusive as to the States.

The state-court proceeding at issue here was a “child custody proceeding.” That term is defined to include any “ ‘adoptive placement’ which shall mean the permanent placement of an Indian child for adoption, including any action resulting in a final decree of adoption.” 25 U. S. C. §1903 (l)(iv). Moreover, the twins were “Indian children.” See 25 U. S. C. § 1903(4). The sole issue in this case is, as the Supreme Court of Mississippi recognized, whether the twins were “domiciled” on the reservation.¹⁶

A

The meaning of “domicile” in the ICWA is, of course, a matter of Congress’ intent. The ICWA itself does not define it. The initial question we must confront is whether there is any reason to believe that Congress intended the ICWA definition of “domicile” to be a matter of state law. While the meaning of a federal statute is necessarily a federal question in the sense that its construction remains subject to this Court’s supervision, see P. Bator, D. Meltzer, P. Mishkin, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 566 (3d ed. 1988); cf. Reconstruction Finance Corporation v. Beaver County, 328 U. S. 204, 210 (1946), Congress sometimes intends that a statutory term be given content by the application of state law. De Sylva v. Ballentine, 351 U. S. 570, 580 (1956); see also Beaver County, supra; Helvering v. Stuart, 317 U. S. 154, 161-162 (1942). We start, however, with the general assumption that “in the absence of a plain indication to the contrary, . . . Congress when it enacts a statute is not making the application of the federal act dependent on state law.” Jerome v. United States, 318 U. S. 101, 104 (1943); NLRB v. Natural Gas Utility Dist. of Hawkins County, 402 U. S. 600, 603 (1971); Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U. S. 103, 119 (1983). One reason for this rule of construction is that federal statutes are generally intended to have uniform nationwide application. Jerome, supra, at 104; Dickerson, supra, at 119-120; United States v. Pelzer, 312 U. S. 399, 402-403 (1941). Accordingly, the cases in which we have found that Congress intended a state-law definition of a statutory term have often been those where uniformity clearly was not intended. E. g., Beaver County, supra, at 209 (statute permitting States to apply their diverse local tax laws to real property of certain Government corporations). A second reason for the presumption against the application of state law is the danger that “the federal program would be impaired if state law were to control.” Jerome, supra, at 104; Dickerson, supra, at 119-120; Pelzer, 312 U. S., at 402-403. For this reason, “we look to the purpose of the statute to ascertain what is intended.” Id., at 403.

In NLRB v. Hearst Publications, Inc., 322 U. S. 111 (1944), we rejected an argument that the term “employee” as used in the Wagner Act should be defined by state law. We explained our conclusion as follows:

“Both the terms and the purposes of the statute, as well as the legislative history, show that Congress had in mind no . . . patchwork plan for securing freedom of employees’ organization and of collective bargaining. The Wagner Act is . . . intended to solve a national problem on a national scale. . . . Nothing in the statute’s background, history, terms or purposes indicates its scope is to be limited by . . . varying local conceptions, either statutory or judicial, or that it is to be administered in accordance with whatever different standards the respective states may see fit to adopt for the disposition of unrelated, local problems.” Id., at 123.

See also Natural Gas Utility Dist., supra, at 603-604. For the two principal reasons that follow, we believe that what we said of the Wagner Act applies equally well to the ICWA.

First, and most fundamentally, the purpose of the ICWA gives no reason to believe that Congress intended to rely on state law for the definition of a critical term; quite the contrary. It is clear from the very text of the ICWA, not to mention its legislative history and the hearings that led to its enactment, that Congress was concerned with the rights of Indian families and Indian communities vis-a-vis state authorities.¹⁷ More specifically, its purpose was, in part, to make clear that in certain situations the state courts did not have jurisdiction over child custody proceedings. Indeed, the congressional findings that are a part of the statute demonstrate that Congress perceived the States and their courts as partly responsible for the problem it intended to correct. See 25 U. S. C. §1901(5) (state “judicial bodies . . . have often failed to recognize the essential tribal relations of Indian people and the cultural and social standards prevailing in Indian communities and families”).¹⁸ Under these circumstances it is most improbable that Congress would have intended to leave the scope of the statute’s key jurisdictional provision subject to definition by state courts as a matter of state law.

Second, Congress could hardly have intended the lack of nationwide uniformity that would result from state-law definitions of domicile. An example will illustrate. In a case quite similar to this one, the New Mexico state courts found exclusive jurisdiction in the tribal court pursuant to § 1911(a), because the illegitimate child took the reservation domicile of its mother at birth — notwithstanding that the child was placed in the custody of adoptive parents 2 days after its off-reservation birth and the mother executed a consent to adoption 10 days later. In re Adoption of Baby Child, 102 N. M. 735, 737-738, 700 P. 2d 198, 200-201 (App. 1985).¹⁹ Had that mother traveled to Mississippi to give birth, rather than to Albuquerque, a different result would have obtained if state-law definitions of domicile applied. The same, presumably, would be true if the child had been transported to Mississippi for adoption after her off-reservation birth in New Mexico. While the child’s custody proceeding would have been subject to exclusive tribal jurisdiction in her home State, her mother, prospective adoptive parents, or an adoption intermediary could have obtained an adoption decree in state court merely by transporting her across state lines.²⁰ Even if we could conceive of a federal statute under which the rules of domicile (and thus of jurisdiction) applied differently to different Indian children, a statute under which different rules apply from time to time to the same child, simply as a result of his or her transport from one State to another, cannot be what Congress had in mind.²¹

We therefore think it beyond dispute that Congress intended a uniform federal law of domicile for the ICWA.²²

It remains to give content to the term “domicile” in the circumstances of the present case. The holding of the Supreme Court of Mississippi that the twin babies were not domiciled on the Choctaw Reservation appears to have rested on two findings of fact by the trial court: (1) that they had never been physically present there, and (2) that they were “voluntarily surrendered” by their parents. 511 So. 2d, at 921; see Record 78. The question before us, therefore, is whether under the ICWA definition of “domicile” such facts suffice to render the twins nondomiciliaries of the reservation.

We have often stated that in the absence of a statutory definition we “start with the assumption that the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.” Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 9 (1962); Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 21 (1983). We do so, of course, in the light of the “‘object and policy’” of the statute. Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U. S. 270, 285 (1956), quoting United States v. Heirs of Boisdoré, 8 How. 113, 122 (1849). We therefore look both to the generally accepted meaning of the term “domicile” and to the purpose of the statute.

That we are dealing with a uniform federal rather than a state definition does not, of course, prevent us from drawing on general state-law principles to determine “the ordinary meaning of the words used.” Well-settled state law can inform our understanding of what Congress had in mind when it employed a term it did not define. Accordingly, we find it helpful to borrow established common-law principles of domicile to the extent that they are not inconsistent with the objectives of the congressional scheme.

“Domicile” is, of course, a concept widely used in both federal and state courts for jurisdiction and conflict-of-laws purposes, and its meaning is generally uncontroverted. See generally Restatement §§ 11-23; R. Leflar, L. McDougal, & R. Felix, American Conflicts Law 17-38 (4th ed. 1986); R. Weintraub, Commentary on the Conflict of Laws 12-24 (2d ed. 1980). “Domicile” is not necessarily synonymous with “residence,” Perri v. Kisselbach, 34 N. J. 84, 87, 167 A. 2d 377, 379 (1961), and one can reside in one place but be domiciled in another, District of Columbia v. Murphy, 314 U. S. 441 (1941); In re Estate of Jones, 192 Iowa 78, 80, 182 N. W. 227, 228 (1921). For adults, domicile is established by physical presence in a place in connection with a certain state of mind concerning one’s intent to remain there. Texas v. Florida, 306 U. S. 398, 424 (1939). One acquires a “domicile of origin” at birth, and that domicile continues until a new one (a “domicile of choice”) is acquired. Jones, supra, at 81, 182 N. W., at 228; In re Estate of Moore, 68 Wash. 2d 792, 796, 415 P. 2d 653, 656 (1966). Since most minors are legally incapable of forming the requisite intent to establish a domicile, their domicile is determined by that of their parents. Yarborough v. Yarborough, 290 U. S. 202, 211 (1933). In the case of an illegitimate child, that has traditionally meant the domicile of its mother. Kowalski v. Wojtkowski, 19 N. J. 247, 258, 116 A. 2d 6, 12 (1955); Moore, supra, at 796, 415 P. 2d, at 656; Restatement § 14(2), § 22, Comment c; 25 Am. Jur. 2d, Domicil § 69 (1966). Under these principles, it is entirely logical that “[o]n occasion, a child’s domicil of origin will be in a place where the child has never been.” Restatement § 14, Comment b.

It is undisputed in this case that the domicile of the mother (as well as the father) has been, at all relevant times, on the Choctaw Reservation. Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-29. Thus, it is clear that at their birth the twin babies were also domiciled on the reservation, even though they themselves had never been there. The statement of the Supreme Court of Mississippi that “[a]t no point in time can it be said the twins . . . were domiciled within the territory set aside for the reservation,” 511 So. 2d, at 921, may be a correct statement of that State’s law of domicile, but it is inconsistent with generally accepted doctrine in this country and cannot be what Congress had in mind when it used the term in the ICWA.

Nor can the result be any different simply because the twins were “voluntarily surrendered” by their mother. Tribal jurisdiction under § 1911(a) was not meant to be defeated by the actions of individual members of the tribe, for Congress was concerned not solely about the interests of Indian children and families, but also about the impact on the tribes themselves of the large numbers of Indian children adopted by non-Indians. See 25 U. S. C. §§ 1901(3) (“[T]here is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children”), 1902 (“promote the stability and security of Indian tribes”).²³ The numerous prerogatives accorded the tribes through the ICWA’s substantive provisions, e. g., §§ 1911(a) (exclusive jurisdiction over reservation domiciliaries), 1911(b) (presumptive jurisdiction over nondomiciliaries), 1911(c) (right of intervention), 1912(a) (notice), 1914 (right to petition for invalidation of state-court action), 1915(c) (right to alter presumptive placement priorities applicable to state-court actions), 1915(e) (right to obtain records), 1919 (authority to conclude agreements with States), must, accordingly, be seen as a means of protecting not only the interests of individual Indian children and families, but also of the tribes themselves.

In addition, it is clear that Congress’ concern over the placement of Indian children in non-Indian homes was based in part on evidence of the detrimental impact on the children themselves of such placements outside their culture.²⁴ Congress determined to subject such placements to the ICWA’s jurisdictional and other provisions, even in cases where the parents consented to an adoption, because of concerns going beyond the wishes of individual parents. As the 1977 Final Report of the congressionally established American Indian Policy Review Commission stated, in summarizing these two concerns, “[rjemoval of Indian children from their cultural setting seriously impacts a long-term tribal survival and has damaging social and psychological impact on many individual Indian children.” Senate Report, at 52.²⁵

These congressional objectives make clear that a rule of domicile that would permit individual Indian parents to defeat the ICWA’s jurisdictional scheme is inconsistent with what Congress intended.²⁶ See In re Adoption of Child of Indian Heritage, 111 N. J. 155, 168-171, 543 A. 2d 925, 931-933 (1988). The appellees in this case argue strenuously that the twins’ mother went to great lengths to give birth off the reservation so that her children could be adopted by the Holyfields. But that was precisely part of Congress’ concern. Permitting individual members of the tribe to avoid tribal exclusive jurisdiction by the simple expedient of giving birth off the reservation would, to a large extent, nullify the purpose the ICWA was intended to accomplish.²⁷ The Supreme Court of Utah expressed this well in its scholarly and sensitive opinion in what has become a leading case on the ICWA:

“To the extent that [state] abandonment law operates to permit [the child’s] mother to change [the child’s] domicile as part of a scheme to facilitate his adoption by non-Indians while she remains a domiciliary of the reservation, it conflicts with and undermines the operative scheme established by subsections [1911(a)] and [1913(a)] to deal with children of domiciliaries of the reservation and weakens considerably the tribe’s ability to assert its interest in its children. The protection of this tribal interest is at the core of the ICWA, which recognizes that the tribe has an interest in the child which is distinct from but on a parity with the interest of the parents. This relationship between Indian tribes and Indian children domiciled on the reservation finds no parallel in other ethnic cultures found in the United States. It is a relationship that many non-Indians find difficult to understand and that non-Indian courts are slow to recognize. It is precisely in recognition of this relationship, however, that the ICWA designates the tribal court as the exclusive forum for the determination of custody and adoption matters for reservation-domiciled Indian children, and the preferred forum for nondomiciliary Indian children. [State] abandonment law cannot be used to frustrate the federal legislative judgment expressed in the ICWA that the interests of the tribe in custodial decisions made with respect to Indian children are as entitled to respect as the interests of the parents.” In re Adoption of Halloway, 732 P. 2d 962, 969-970 (1986).

We agree with the Supreme Court of Utah that the law of domicile Congress used in the ICWA cannot be one that permits individual reservation-domiciled tribal members to defeat the tribe’s exclusive jurisdiction by the simple expedient of giving birth and placing the child for adoption off the reservation. Since, for purposes of the ICWA, the twin babies in this case were domiciled on the reservation when adoption proceedings were begun, the Choctaw tribal court possessed exclusive jurisdiction pursuant to 25 U. S. C. § 1911(a). The Chancery Court of Harrison County was, accordingly, without jurisdiction to enter a decree of adoption; under ICWA § 104, 25 U. S. C. § 1914, its decree of January 28, 1986, must be vacated.

Ill

We are not unaware that over three years have passed since the twin babies were born and placed in the Holyfield home, and that a court deciding their fate today is not writing on a blank slate in the same way it would have in January 1986. Three years’ development of family ties cannot be undone, and a separation at this point would doubtless cause considerable pain.

Whatever feelings we might have as to where the twins should live, however, it is not for us to decide that question. We have been asked to decide the legal question of who should make the custody determination concerning these children — not what the outcome of that determination should be. The law places that decision in the hands of the Choctaw tribal court. Had the mandate of the ICWA been followed in 1986, of course, much potential anguish might have been avoided, and in any case the law cannot be applied so as automatically to “reward those who obtain custody, whether lawfully or otherwise, and maintain it during any ensuing (and protracted) litigation.” Halloway, 732 P. 2d, at 972. It is not ours to say whether the trauma that might result from removing these children from their adoptive family should outweigh the interest of the Tribe — and perhaps the children themselves — in having them raised as part of the Choctaw community.²⁸ Rather, “we must defer to the experience, wisdom, and compassion of the [Choctaw] tribal courts to fashion an appropriate remedy.” Ibid.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Mississippi is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

1 For example, Dr. Joseph Westermeyer, a University of Minnesota social psychiatrist, testified about his research with Indian adolescents who experienced difficulty coping in white society, despite the fact that they had been raised in a purely white environment:

“[Tjhey were raised with a white cultural and social identity. They are raised in a white home. They attended, predominantly white schools, and in almost all cases, attended a church that was predominantly white, and really came to understand very little about Indian culture, Indian behavior, and had virtually no viable Indian identity. They can recall such things as seeing cowboys and Indians on TV and feeling that Indians were a historical figure but were not a viable contemporary social group.

“Then during adolescence, they found that society was not to grant them the white identity that they had. They began to find this out in a number of ways. For example, a universal experience was that when they began to date white children, the parents of the white youngsters were against this, and there were pressures among white children from the parents not to date these Indian children. ...

“The other experience was derogatory name calling in relation to their racial identity ....

“[T]hey were finding that society was putting on them an identity which they didn’t possess and taking from them an identity that they did possess.” 1974 Hearings, at 46.

2 Hearing on S. 1214 before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. (1977) (hereinafter 1977 Hearings); Hearings on S. 1214 before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs and Public Lands of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. (1978) (hereinafter 1978 Hearings).

3 These sentiments were shared by the ICWA’s principal sponsor in the House, Rep. Morris Udall, see 124 Cong. Rec. 38102 (1978) (“Indian tribes and Indian people are being drained of their children and, as a result, their future as a tribe and a people is being placed in jeopardy”), and its minority sponsor, Rep. Robert Lagomarsino, see ibid. (“This bill is directed at conditions which . . . threaten. . . the future of American Indian tribes . . .”).

4 One of the particular points of concern was the failure of non-Indian child welfare workers to understand the role of the extended family in Indian society. The House Report on the ICWA noted: “An Indian child may have scores of, perhaps more than a hundred, relatives who are counted as close, responsible members of the family. Many social workers, untutored in the ways of Indian family life or assuming them to be socially irresponsible, consider leaving the child with persons outside the nuclear family as neglect and thus as grounds for terminating parental rights.” House Report, at 10. At the conclusion of the 1974 Senate hearings, Senator Abourezk noted the role that such extended families played in the care of children: “We’ve had testimony here that in Indian communities throughout the Nation there is no such thing as an abandoned child because when a child does have a need for parents for one reason or another, a relative or a friend will take that child in. It’s the extended family concept.” 1974 Hearings, at 473. See also Wisconsin Potowatomies of Hannahville Indian Community v. Houston, 393 F. Supp. 719 (WD Mich. 1973) (discussing custom of extended family and tribe assuming responsibility for care of orphaned children).

5 Section 1911(a) reads in full:

“An Indian tribe shall have jurisdiction exclusive as to any State over any child custody proceeding involving an Indian child who resides or is domiciled within the reservation of such tribe, except where such jurisdiction is otherwise vested in the State by existing Federal law. Where an Indian child is a ward of a tribal court, the Indian tribe shall retain exclusive jurisdiction, notwithstanding the residence or domicile of the child.’’

6 The quoted passages are from the House Report’s discussion of § 1915, in which the ICWA attempts to accomplish these aims, in regard to nondomiciliaries of the reservation, through the establishment of standards for state-court proceedings. In regard to reservation domiciliaries, these goals are pursued through the establishment of exclusive tribal jurisdiction under § 1911(a).

Beyond its jurisdictional and other provisions concerning child custody proceedings, the. ICWA also created, in its Title II, a program of grants to Indian tribes and organizations to aid in the establishment of child welfare programs. See 25 U. S. C. §§ 1931-1934.

7 Section 103(a) of the ICWA, 25 U. S. C. § 1913(a), requires that any voluntary consent to termination of parental rights be executed in writing and recorded before a judge of a “court of competent jurisdiction,” who must certify that the terms and consequences of the consent were fully explained and understood. Section 1913(a) also provides that any consent given prior to birth or within 10 days thereafter is invalid. In this case the mother’s consent was given 12 days after the birth. See also n. 26, infra.

8 W. J.’s consent to adoption was signed before a notary public in Neshoba County on January 11, 1986. Record 11-12. Only on June 3, 1986, however — well after the decree of adoption had been entered and after the Tribe had filed suit to vacate that decree — did the chancellor of the Chancery Court certify that W. J. had appeared before him in Harrison County to execute the consent to adoption. Id., at 12-A.

9 Appellee Orrey Holyfield died during the pendency of this appeal.

10 Mississippi adoption law provides for a 6-month waiting period between interlocutory and final decrees of adoption, but grants the chancellor discretionary authority to waive that requirement and immediately enter a final decree of adoption. See Miss. Code Ann. § 93-17-13 (1972). The chancellor did so here, Record 14, with the result that the final decree of adoption was entered less than one month after the babies’ birth.

11 The chancellor’s certificates that the parents had appeared before him to consent to the adoption recited that “the Consent and Waiver was given in full compliance with Section 103(a) of Public Law 95-608” (i. e., 25 U. S. C. § 1913(a)). Record 10, 12-A.

12 The ICWA specifically confers standing on the Indian child’s tribe to participate in child custody adjudications. Title 25 U. S. C. § 1914 authorizes the tribe (as well as the child and its parents) to petition a court to invalidate any foster care placement or termination of parental rights under state law “upon a showing that such action violated any provision of sections 101, 102, and 103” of the ICWA. 92 Stat. 3072. See also § 1911(c) (Indian child’s tribe may intervene at any point in state-court proceedings for foster care placement or termination of parental rights). “Termination of parental rights” is defined in § 1903(l)(ii) as “any action resulting in the termination of the parent-child relationship.”

13 The lower court may well have fulfilled the applicable ICWA procedural requirements. But see n. 8, supra, and n. 26, infra. It clearly did not, however, comply with or even take cognizance of the substantive mandate of § 1915(a): “In any adoptive placement of an Indian child under State law, a preference shall be given, in the absence of good cause to the contrary, to a placement with (1) a member of the child’s extended family; (2) other members of the Indian child’s tribe: or (3) other Indian families.” (Emphasis added.) Section 1915(e), moreover, requires the court to maintain records “evidencing the efforts to comply with the order of preference specified in this- section.” Notwithstanding the Tribe’s argument below that § 1915 had been violated, see Brief for Appellant 20-22 and Appellant’s Brief in Support of Petition for Rehearing 11-12 in No. 57,659 (Miss. Sup. Ct.), the Mississippi Supreme Court made no reference to it, merely stating in conclusory fashion that the “minimum federal standards” had been met. 511 So. 2d, at 921.

14 See, e. g., In re Adoption of Halloway, 732 P. 2d 962 (Utah 1986); In re Adoption of Baby Child, 102 N. M. 735, 700 P. 2d 198 (App. 1985); In re Appeal in Pima County Juvenile Action No. S-903, 130 Ariz. 202, 635 P. 2d 187 (App. 1981), cert. denied sub nom. Catholic Social Services of Tucson v. P. C., 455 U. S. 1007 (1982).

15 Because it was unclear whether this case fell within the Court’s appellate jurisdiction, we postponed consideration of our jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits. Pursuant to the version of 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2) applicable to this appeal, we have appellate jurisdiction to review a state-court judgment “where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.” It is sufficient that the validity of the state statute be challenged and sustained as applied to a particular set of facts. Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University, 489 U. S. 468, 473-474, n. 4 (1989); Dahnke-Walker Milling Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282, 288-290 (1921). In practice, whether such an as-applied challenge comes within our appellate jurisdiction often turns on how that challenge is framed. See Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U. S. 235, 244 (1958); Memphis Natural Gas Co. v. Beeler, 315 U. S. 649, 650-651 (1942).

In the present case appellants argued below “that the state lower court jurisdiction over these adoptions was preempted by plenary federal legislation.” Brief for Appellant in No. 57,659 (Miss. Sup. Ct.), p. 5. Whether this formulation “squarely” challenges the validity of the state adoption statute as applied, see Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U. S. 434, 440-441 (1979), or merely asserts a federal right or immunity, 28 U. S. C. § 1257(3), is a difficult question to which the answer must inevitably be somewhat arbitrary. Since in the near future our appellate jurisdiction will extend only to rare cases, see Pub. L. 100-352,102 Stat. 662, it is also a question of little prospective importance. Rather than attempting to resolve this question, therefore, we think it advisable to assume that the appeal is improper and to consider by writ of certiorari the important question this case presents. See Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 557, n. 3 (1967). We therefore dismiss the appeal, treat the papers as a petition for writ of certiorari, 28 U. S. C. § 2103, and grant the petition. (For convenience, we will continue to refer to the parties as appellant and appellees.)

16 “Reservation” is defined quite broadly for purposes of the ICWA. See 25 U. S. C. § 1903(10). There is no dispute that the Choctaw Reservation falls within that definition.

Section 1911(a) does not apply “where such jurisdiction is otherwise vested in the State by existing Federal law.” This proviso would appear to refer to Pub. L. 280, 67 Stat. 588, as amended, which allows States under certain conditions to assume civil and criminal jurisdiction on the reservations. Title 25 U. S. C. § 1918 permits a tribe in that situation to reassume jurisdiction over child custody proceedings upon petition to the Secretary of the Interior. The State of Mississippi has never asserted jurisdiction over the Choctaw Reservation under Public Law 280. See F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 362-363, and nn. 122-125 (1982); cf. United States v. John, 437 U. S. 634 (1978).

17 This conclusion is inescapable from a reading of the entire statute, the main effect of which is to curtail state authority. See especially §§ 1901, 1911-1916, 1918.

18 See also 124 Cong. Rec. 38103 (1978) (letter from Rep. Morris K. Udall to Assistant Attorney General Patricia M. Wald) (“[Sítate courts and agencies and their procedures share a large part of the responsibility” for the crisis threatening “the future and integrity of Indian tribes and Indian families”); House Report, at 19 (“Contributing to this problem has been the failure of State officials, agencies, and procedures to take into account the special problems and circumstances of Indian families and the legitimate interest of the Indian tribe in preserving and protecting the Indian family as the wellspring of its own future”). See also In re Adoption of Halloway, 732 P. 2d, at 969 (Utah state court “quite frankly might be expected to be more receptive than a tribal court to [Indian child’s] placement with non-Indian adoptive parents. Yet this receptivity of the non-Indian forum to non-Indian placement of an Indian child is precisely one of the evils at which the ICWA was aimed”).

19 Some details of the Baby Child case are taken from the briefs in Pino v. District Court, Bernalillo County, O. T. 1984, No. 84-248. That appeal was dismissed under this Court’s Rule 53, 472 U. S. 1001 (1985), following the appellant’s successful collateral attack, in the case cited in the text, on the judgment from which appeal had been taken.

20 Nor is it inconceivable that a State might apply its law of domicile in such a manner as to render inapplicable § 1911(a) even to a child who had lived several years on the reservation but was removed from it for the purpose of adoption. Even in the less extreme case, a state-law definition of domicile would likely spur the development of an adoption brokerage business. Indian children, whose parents consented (with or without financial inducement) to give them up, could be transported for adoption to States like Mississippi where the law of domicile permitted the proceedings to take place in state court.

21 For this reason, the general rule that domicile is determined according to the law of the forum, see Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 13 (1971) (hereinafter Restatement), can have no application here.

22 We note also the likelihood that, had Congress intended a state-law definition of domicile, it would have said so. Where Congress did intend that ICWA terms be defined by reference to other than federal law, it stated this explicitly. See §1903(2) (“extended family member” defined by reference to tribal law or custom); § 1903(6) (“Indian custodian" defined by reference to tribal law or custom and to state law).

23 See also supra, at 34, and n. 3.

24 In large part the concerns that emerged during the congressional hearings on the ICWA were based on studies showing recurring developmental problems encountered during adolescence by Indian children raised in a white environment. See n. 1, supra. See also 1977 Hearings, at 114 (statement of American Academy of Child Psychiatry); S. Rep. No. 95-597, p. 43 (1977) (hereinafter Senate Report). More generally, placements in non-Indian homes were seen as “depriving the child of his or her tribal and cultural heritage.” Id., at 45; see also 124 Cong. Rec. 38102-38103 (1978) (remarks of Rep. Lagomarsino). The Senate Report on the ICWA incorporates the testimony in this sense of Louis La Rose, chairman of the Winnebago Tribe, before the American Indian Policy Review Commission:

“I think the cruelest trick that the white man has ever done to Indian children is to take them into adoption courts, erase all of their records and send them off to some nebulous family that has a value system that is A-l in the State of Nebraska and that child reaches 16 or 17, he is a little brown child residing in a white community and he goes back to the reservation and he has absolutely no idea who his relatives are, and they effectively make him a non-person and I think . . . they destroy him.” Senate Report, at 43.

Thus, the conclusion seems justified that, as one state court has put it, “[t]he Act is based on the fundamental assumption that it is in the Indian child’s best interest that its relationship to the tribe be protected.” In re Appeal in Pima County Juvenile Action No. S-903, 130 Ariz., at 204, 635 P. 2d, at 189.

25 While the statute itself makes clear that Congress intended the ICWA to reach voluntary as well as involuntary removal of Indian children, the same conclusion can also be drawn from the ICWA’s legislative history. For example, the House Report contains the following expression of Congress’ concern with both aspects of the problem:

“One of the effects of our national paternalism has been to so alienate some Indian [parents] from their society that they abandon their children at hospitals or to welfare departments rather than entrust them to the care of relatives in the extended family. Another expression of it is the involuntary, arbitrary, and unwarranted separation of families.” House Report, at 12.

26 The Bureau of Indian Affairs pointed out, in issuing nonbinding ICWA guidelines for the state courts, that the terms “residence” and “domicile” “are well defined under existing state law. There is no indication that these state law definitions tend to undermine in any way the purposes of the Act.” 44 Fed. Reg. 67584, 67585 (1979). The clear implication is that state law that did tend to undermine the ICWA’s purposes could not be taken to express Congress’ intent. There is some authority for the proposition that abandonment can effectuate a change in the child’s domicile, In re Adoption of Halloway, 732 P. 2d, at 967, although this may not be the majority rule. See Restatement § 22, Comment e (abandoned child generally retains the domicile of the last-abandoning parent). In any ease, as will be seen below, the Supreme Court of Utah declined in the Halloway case to apply Utah abandonment law to defeat the purpose of the ICWA. Similarly, the conclusory statement of the Supreme Court of Mississippi that the twin babies had been “legally abandoned,” 511 So. 2d, at 921, cannot be determinative of ICWA jurisdiction.

There is also another reason for reaching this conclusion. The predicate for the state court’s abandonment finding was the parents’ consent to termination of their parental rights, recorded before a judge of the state Chancery Court. ICWA § 103(a), 25 U. S. C. § 1913(a), requires, however, that such a consent be recorded before “a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction.” See n. 7, sxipra. In the case of reservation-domiciled children, that could be only the tribal court. The children therefore could not be made nondomiciliaries of the reservation through any such state-court consent.

27 It appears, in fact, that all Choctaw women give birth off the reservation because of the lack of appropriate obstetric facilities there. See Juris. Statement 4, n. 2. In most cases, of course, the mother and child return to the reservation after the birth, and this would presumably be sufficient to make the child a reservation domiciliary even under the Mississippi court’s theory. Application of the Mississippi domicile rule would, however, permit state authorities to avoid the tribal court’s exclusive § 1911(a) jurisdiction by removing a newborn from an allegedly unfit mother while in the hospital, and seeking to terminate her parental rights in state court.

28 We were assured at oral argument that the Choctaw court has the authority under the tribal code to permit adoption by the present adoptive family, should it see fit to do so. Tr. of Oral Arg. 17.