Shelly Schultz

Reporter

COSHOCTON - Four-year-old Dakota is a superhero, Spider-Man more specifically. He darts through the house from room-to-room, occasionally peeking around a corner to see if anyone notices him. For a moment he is distracted, but the night will fall and so will the tears that rip at the heart of his family.

What should have been a joyous Christmas for Stan and Nichole Braxton and their 10 children quickly turned into despair. A Dec. 23, court ruling left the Coshocton couple tearfully preparing to hand over their foster son to a Native American tribe in Arizona.

"It's really hard to look into the eyes of your crying child and tell them there is nothing you can do when they don't want to leave," said Nichole, who home-schools their 10 children which include two foster children. Stan is a firefighter and pastor of The Upper Room Assembly and Worship Center in Coshocton.

"The lady across the street from where I grew up had foster children and I watched them tear up her house and all the problems she had with them, I swore I would never foster children," Nichole said. "We were sitting in church when out of the blue I looked at Stan and told him God wants us to foster children."

Dakota, whose real name has not been released, was taken into custody by Franklin County Child Protective Services and placed in foster care with the Braxtons when he was 2. Recently the couple, with the biological mother's approval, decided to file for legal guardianship. What transpired as a result has left everyone involved in disbelief.

Courts generally decide child custody issues by looking at state laws, but Indian children are also protected by the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law passed in 1978 intended to preserve the Native American heritage.

ICWA sets out federal requirements regarding removal and placement of Indian children in foster or adoptive homes and allows the child’s tribe to intervene in the case.

"Against what (the biological mother) wants, against what his guardian ad litem wants, against what the state of Ohio wants, this tribe from Arizona can come in and say we are going to take him and we are going to do what we want, and this U.S. statute is going to allow us to do that and there's nothing you can do or say," Stan said. "What year is this? Come on!"

ICWA was enacted because of the disproportionately high rate of removal of Indian children from their traditional homes and essentially from Indian culture as a whole. Before the enactment, as many as 25 to 35 percent of all Indian children were being removed from their homes and placed in non-Indian homes, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

ICWA, in short, prevents the placement of Indian children in non-Indian homes without reasonable effort to place the child with a native family member or with an Indian foster family.

"When this law was enacted, I am sure it served a great purpose but it has served it's purpose and needs to be repealed," Stan said. "This is not helping children. It's not in the best interest of children. This law is ripping children away from their families, their homes. It is damaging children."

In recent years, the ICWA has fallen under great scrutiny by parents, child advocates and courts who claim the antiquated law does not give enough consideration to what is in the best interest of the child.

Baby Veronica made national headlines when she was removed from her adoptive home in Charleston, South Carolina after her biological father asserted his custody rights under ICWA to reverse the adoption. Matt and Melanie Capobianco legally adopted Veronica at birth, in September 2009. Her biological mother, Christina Maldonado, had broken up with the child's father, Dusten Brown, and opted to give up the child for adoption without Brown's knowledge. In 2011 Brown was granted custody of Veronica under ICWA. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Capobianco family and Veronica was returned to them.

ICWA made headlines again in 2016 when a judge ruled that 6-year-old Lexi should leave her California foster family and be placed with distant relatives in Utah. Rusty and Summer Page continue to fight to have Lexi returned to their California home. On Dec. 21, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court was given the briefs regarding the request to hear Lexi's case. They expect a decision on Jan. 17, whether or not Lexi's case will be heard in the higher courts.

"I can't even watch the clips of these stories," Nichole said. "It tears my heart out. The reality is, I know this can be me."

All of this spells human trafficking to Stan.

"When you look at the definition, it's really just human trafficking," Stan said. "To take or steal, and they are stealing this child - against mom's wishes, against the guardian ad litem's wishes and against the court's wishes, that is human trafficking."

At noon on Dec. 29, representatives of the Arizona tribe, who could not be identified due to confidentiality, were scheduled to pick up Dakota in Columbus and take him to Arizona to be placed in a foster home with an Indian family.

"At first they said he would be placed in an orphanage until a foster home was found," Nichole said. "I wanted to puke. Now, the tribe says a very distant relative of his dad is willing to take him."

"I didn't know how I was going to do it, how I was going to let them just take him, I didn't know if I could," said Nichole, who had become physically ill from the impending arrival of the tribe. "I was supposed to meet them in Columbus but I told them they would have to come here because there was no way I would be able to drive from Columbus after handing him over."

Approximately 90 minutes before the tribe was to arrive at their home, Dakota's guardian ad litem called. Don't get your hopes up, he told the Braxtons, but the Ohio Court of Appeals issued a two-week stay, allowing the attorney to present objection.

With just days to spare, the Braxtons are pleading with everyone who will listen to help them in their fight to keep Dakota in Ohio with his family and his biological mother who lives in Columbus. The Supreme Court of Ohio is expected to decide if they will hear Dakota's case by the end of the week.

"It's time, not much time, but time nonetheless," Stan said. "We need all the help we can get here. We need attorneys to step up, we need the courts to step up, we need the community to step up. We need support and prayers. We need everyone to contact our government officials on the state and national level. We need to give (Dakota) a very big and very powerful voice. He needs to be here, with his family, where he can still be a part of him mom's life, with people who love him, where he is safe and he feels safe, where he is loved and he feels loved."

cschultz3@gannett.com

740-450-6758

Twitter: @infoobtainer1

To follow the Braxtons' fight to keep Dakota in Ohio, visit www.facebook.com/stanbraxton