Who can take a White Earth child, document by document.
Every removal sits on a grant of power from somewhere. This chart follows that grant document by document, from the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe's constitution, through the White Earth Child and Family Protection Code, to the moment a child is removed from a home — and shows the authority each step actually cites. Where a step cites something that does not carry it, the connector is red and the defect is named.
Nothing below turns on whether a child should be removed to safety. It turns on one question only: which document authorizes which person to do it. Quotations are from the documents themselves, and the scans behind them are published on this site.
Revised Constitution and Bylaws of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, ratified November 23, 1963; approved by the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, March 3, 1964; as amended.
A power over a child's family has to sit on something. The constitution says who governs, and it lists what each governing body may do. Article III names the bodies:
The governing bodies of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe shall be the Tribal Executive
Committee and the Reservation Business Committees of the White Earth, Leech Lake, Fond du
Lac, Bois Forte (Nett Lake), and Grand Portage Reservations, and the Nonremoval Mille Lac
Band of Chippewa Indians, hereinafter referred to as the six (6) Reservations.
The powers are enumerated lists: Article V for the Tribal Executive Committee, Article VI for each Reservation Business Committee. They run to legal counsel, land and assets, budgets, contracts, licences and fees on non-members doing business, community organizations, and the power to delegate. Child protection, child welfare, and child custody are not among them.
Cited authority: the constitution itself, where powers are listed.
Everything below this line is a power someone has to hand down; none of it is free-standing.
U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Twin Cities Field Solicitor opinion, June 10, 1980; Solicitor's Opinion BIA.IA.0708, July 31, 1986.
This was asked — and answered — long before any code was written. Asked whether the Tribal Executive Committee could set up courts to decide child custody, the Field Solicitor concluded in 1980 that the constitution delegates no such power and would have to be amended first. Six years later, reviewing the same question at the request of the Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee, the Associate Solicitor's opinion reaffirmed:
the Constitution of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe must be amended before the Tribal
Executive Committee or any of the Tribe's reservation business committees may authorize a
tribal court to adjudicate child custody matters.
And it gave the reason in the plainest terms the file contains:
the tribal members have not decided to empower the tribal government to decide who
should have custody of their children
.
The opinion's point was not that tribal courts are wrong. It was that the decision belongs to the members, in the constitution. The amendment was not made.
Cited authority for a child-protection court: none was found.
The Department's answer named the fix: amend the constitution. It was not done.
White Earth Child and Family Protection Code, adopted by Resolution No. 019-17-001, November 28, 2016 (3 for, 0 against); effective March 1, 2017.
The child code is the document that carries the removal machinery now in use on White Earth. Its adopting resolution opens by locating the council's authority:
WHEREAS, the White Earth Reservation Tribal Council is the duly elected governing
body of the White Earth Reservation pursuant to Article IV, Section 1, of the revised
constitution of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, as amended...
Cited authority: Article IV, Section 1.
Article IV is Tribal Elections
; its Section 1 is the right to
vote. The article that names the governing bodies is Article III — quoted at Step 1.
The same recital formula runs through the later enactments: the
Order for Protection
resolution (Res. 019-19-002, April 15, 2019) and the 2021 amendment to the
Judicial Code (Res. 019-21-002) both cite
Article VI, Section 1
— the Reservation Business Committee powers list, whose only
ordinance power is licences and fees on non-members doing business.
Child and Family Protection Code, ch. 5 (§§ 5.01–5.03) and ch. 1 (§§ 1.10, 1.11); page images as posted.
The rule and the grant:
No child shall be removed from the home of the child's parent, guardian or custodian
without the consent of the parent, guardian or custodian absent a specific order of the
Children's Court, except as follows:
— where failure to remove may result in a substantial risk of death, serious injury
or serious emotional harm
; where the parent is absent and no satisfactory arrangements
exist; or where a hospital or treating physician believes return presents an imminent
danger to the child's life or physical or mental health.
(§ 5.01.1, p. 44)
Then who may act:
Tribal law enforcement or social services workers shall have the power to remove a
child pursuant to this Chapter provided that: a. Reasonable grounds existed at the time of
the removal to believe the removal was necessary; and b. The person removing the child
ensures the safety and well-being of the child, until the time as the Children's Court
assumes control over the matter; and c. The person removing the child complies with the
notice provisions in Chapter 5, Section 5.02.
(§ 5.01.2, p. 45)
Who the workers are: Child protection workers may be employed by the Giizhawaaso
(Indian Child Welfare) Department or the tribal law enforcement department.
(§ 1.11.1, p. 21) Notice runs fast: the removing person must attempt court contact within
six hours and give actual notice by noon the next working day; the Giizhawaaso department
must make all reasonable efforts
to notify the parents, with the extended family as
fallback; and the notice must tell parents to contact the Tribal Court about the emergency
hearing and that they are required to participate
(§ 5.02, pp. 45–46). Emergency
custody orders may be requested by the Indian Child Welfare department, a law
enforcement officer, the Gezhaanaajig Nejanisug (those who guard children) or upon the
Court's own motion
(§ 5.03, pp. 45–46).
So the actors with written power over a child in this code: tribal law enforcement; child protection workers, employed by the Indian Child Welfare department or by the tribal law enforcement department; and the Children's Court, by order.
Cited authority: pursuant to this Chapter
— the code itself.
One step up, the code stands on Resolution No. 019-17-001; one step up from that, the resolution cites the elections article; and no article on either powers list names child protection. Follow the chain to the top and it ends where Step 2 said it would.
(The claim of inherent sovereignty over these subjects was made once already, for the court itself; the Department's 1986 answer to it is on The Chain of Delegation.)
White Earth Band of Chippewa Judicial Code, Title 1, ch. I § 1. The full creation analysis is on The Chain of Delegation.
Every removal above ends up in front of the Children's Court — until the time as the
Children's Court assumes control over the matter.
The court's own creation papers name
no enabling authority: There is hereby established the White Earth Band of Chippewa
Tribal Court.
Where the courtroom's authority does and does not come from, step by
step, is charted on The Chain of Delegation; none of that chain's
creation steps cites a carrying article either.
Cited authority for the court's establishment: none named in the Judicial Code's first section.
The creation chain and its defects are set out on The Chain of Delegation. A removal executed under this code moves through a court whose own papers do not cite what carries it.
Child and Family Protection Code §§ 1.10(3), 1.19, 6.01(2), 8.03(4), 10.01(6), 11.12(3)(b), 12.01(6); Minnesota Statutes 2025, §§ 260C.163, 260C.171, 260C.419, 546.42–.43.
Four points, each set beside the State's own lane on the same question:
The child's own advocate. Code: the court may appoint separate counsel or
spokesperson for the child to act as a gezhaanaajig nejanisug (those who guard children)
representing the child's best interests
(§ 1.10(3)(a), p. 20) — discretionary.
State: a child ten or older has counsel at public expense in child protection matters,
and a guardian ad litem is appointed in every such case
(Minn. Stat. § 260C.163).
A lawyer's pay. Code: appointed-counsel compensation shall be paid in
accordance with court policies
(§ 1.19). State: if a parent desires counsel and is
eligible for counsel,
the court shall appoint counsel... prior to the first
hearing
(Minn. Stat.
§ 260C.163, subd. 3(c)).
Interpreting. Code: an interpreter is written in at three consent moments only — relinquishment, voluntary relinquishment, and private-adoption consent (§§ 8.03(4), 10.01(6), 11.12(3)(b)); no hearing-stage guarantee appears in the code. State: where a litigant or witness has a disability, a qualified interpreter serves throughout a civil action (Minn. Stat. §§ 546.42–.43).
The file, and the appeal. Code: discovery is written in only by reference —
parents shall be allowed to obtain discovery pursuant to the White Earth Court Rules of
Civil Procedure
, subject to the code's confidentiality section (§ 6.01(2), p. 51); the
child's advocate has an investigation of its own (§ 1.10(3)(d)); and the appeal record is
the appellant's to buy — costs of obtaining this record shall be paid by the party
seeking the appeal
(§ 12.01(6)). State: attorneys shall be given access to records,
responsible social services agency files, and reports which form the basis of any
recommendation made to the court
(Minn. Stat. § 260C.171,
subd. 3), and the Statewide Office of Appellate Counsel provides appellate
representation to parents, including in tribal court jurisdictions
(§ 260C.419).
Both lanes are quoted from their own texts.
The comparison is not the argument; the texts are the argument. What each side guarantees in writing is checkable at the pages cited.
Vizenor v. Babbitt, 927 F. Supp. 1193 (D. Minn. Apr. 9, 1996), at 1204–05.
In 1996, White Earth and Leech Lake enrollees asked a federal court to step into the Bands' governance; the court dismissed the case, but recorded the structural fact on its way out:
The Court notes that the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Constitution does not create tribal
courts, nor does it expressly vest judicial authority in a discrete body, although the
Vizenor Complaint indicates that a judicial system exists at least with respect to election
disputes.
The finding was never answered with an amendment — the constitution's later amendments (1972, 2006) touched elections and terms of office, not the powers lists. (The case's caption names Ada Deer; it is the opinion sometimes referenced locally as “the Ada Deer opinion.”)
Cited authority for continuing: none was issued.
The court system stayed in force; the constitution was not amended; the code above was built on the same chain.
A worker the code employs, a notice the code times, a judge the code seats, a hearing the code schedules — and behind all of it, a chain of authority whose last written step cites an article that does not carry it. That is what the record shows.