A South Carolina couple is fighting to get their adopted daughter back in their custody after she was placed with her birth father, an Oklahoman, over the weekend. Matt and Melanie Capobianco said goodbye to their two and half year-old daughter Veronica on Saturday. “We're kind of reeling from it, and reliving having to hand her over in our minds constantly is painful,” the couple said. While pregnant, Veronica's birth mother selected the couple and signed off on the adoption. “We were there for the delivery, in the delivery room and Matt cut the umbilical cord, and she's been with us ever since except for the last four days,” Melanie told FOX23 Wednesday. Veronica was removed from the Capobianco's home after her birth father, who is Cherokee, contested the adoption. The custody battle has been on-going since early 2010. The couple says when they first learned they would adopt Veronica; no mention was made of her Indian heritage. “We were told that she was not an Indian child and so we didn't think it was going to make a difference,” Melanie said. That was not the case. The Indian Child Welfare Act, passed in 1978, is a federal law that helps ensure Indian children stay with their birth parents or in other Indian homes whenever possible. That is the basis of the custody petition filed on behalf of Veronica’s birth father, who is represented by the Cherokee Nation. “This isn't in her best interest. We're her family. This is her home,” Matt told FOX23. “We understand the purpose of the Indian Child Welfare Act, but we feel that the ICWA is being abused, you know, we don't think this is what it was meant for,” the couple said. Tulsa attorney June Stanley, who has handled many Indian adoptions, but is not involved in this case, says tribes will fight very hard to keep children from being placed in non-tribal homes. “When a nation gives up its rights to its children its risking losing its culture, its ability to pass on language,” Stanley said. She says if attorneys and perspective parents don't investigate if a child has tribal blood or linage, they could wind up in a similar situation. “Is it common for people who don't practice in Indian law to unintentionally end up in a mess because they didn't know the law was out there? Absolutely.” Now the Capobianco’s are using social media and the internet, http://www.saveveronica.com/, to try and get Veronica back. “It's not about us. It's not about them. It's about our daughter and the best thing for her.”Chrissi Ross Nimmo, the Assistant Attorney General who represented the Cherokee Nation in this case, gave FOX23 this statement:
“As a matter of law and policy, the Cherokee Nation’s attorney general’s office generally does not comment on juvenile cases due to their sensitive nature and confidential information. In an effort to quell the undue outside attention to this sensitive affair, the Cherokee Nation attorney general’s office filed a motion for a gag order in this case Wednesday afternoon, along with a motion to release the judge’s final order to the public. I ask that all parties involved in the matter respect the confidential nature of these juvenile court proceedings. The Cherokee Nation has 115 Indian Child Welfare employees and nine assistant attorneys general who work tirelessly to fight for the rights of Cherokee children and their parents, not only within our 14-county jurisdiction, but in tribal, state and federal courts across the nation. The Indian Child Welfare Act was written to help keep Native American children with their families whenever possible – a concept embraced wholeheartedly by the Cherokee Nation.”
