ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico has passed new protections for Native children, providing more assurance they can remain within tribal communities if their parents cannot take care of them.
There are federal protections for these issues, but many had feared they could come to an end because of legal challenges from non-Native families. Now, New Mexico has passed a law that would keep these protections in the state even if the federal rules go away.
Many gathered at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque Friday to celebrate the passage, including 14-year-old Than Povi Baca. After her mother was murdered, she was adopted on the Santa Clara Pueblo. She said the federal protections, solidified now on the state level with the Indian Family Protection Act, are the reason for her success story.
“I wouldn’t be in my community, my pueblo,” she said. “I wouldn’t have met my real uncles and aunties.”
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