A 6-year-old girl was removed from the California home of the foster family she has lived with for four years because she has a tiny sliver of Native American heritage — despite resistance from her foster parents and their tens of thousands of supporters. 
 
 Rusty and Summer Page of Santa Clarita, California, have long fought to gain custody of Lexi, 6, who is 1.56 percent Choctaw Native American. That figure means that Lexi's home placement is dictated by the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. 
 
 Rusty Page carries Lexi while Summer Page, in the background, cries as members of family services, left, arrive to take Lexi away from her foster family in Santa Clarita, Calif., on March 21. David Crane / Los Angeles Daily News via AP 
 
 That law "seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian families," according to its own language. 
 
 The child's birth parents struggled with substance abuse, according to court documents. Her father, who had a criminal history, never lived on a Choctaw reservation and didn't have any social, political, or cultural ties to the tribe, according to the court documents. But officials determined that Lexi is 1/64th Choctaw based on his ancestry. 
 
 Lexi was placed with the Pages — who have three other children — in December 2011 after two unsuccessful foster homes, including one where she was taken out of because of a black eye and a scrape on her face, the court documents said. 
 
 In 2011, "extended" family in Utah became aware that Lexi was with a foster family and expressed "interest in adopting" her, according to the documents. The documents said that Lexi is related to the Utah couple, who are not Native American, through her step-grandfather. 
 
 The California Court of Appeals originally ruled in August of 2014 that Lexi could stay with the Pages and they could continue to fight the Utah family for custody of the child. 
 
 But a decision earlier this month ordered the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (LA DCFS) to place Lexi with the Utah family "in accordance with the federal Indian Child Welfare Act," the department said in response to inquiries about Lexi's case. 
 
 In the days after losing their legal battle, the Pages addressed an online petition called "Keep Lexi Home" to several California and LA DCFS officials. 
 
 "There is a 6-year-old little girl who is going to be ripped away from the only family that she has ever known. Her name is Lexi," the petition said. "To Lexi this family is her everything — her mommy, daddy and brother and sisters." By Monday afternoon, more than 40,000 people had signed the petition. 
 
 Dozens of supporters also surrounded the Page's home Monday in an attempt to block LA DCFS officers. Many of those gathered had been camped out in the street — singing and praying — since Sunday, when the officers were originally expected to arrive. 
 
 Their efforts weren't successful. 
 
 Lexi was taken from the Page home on Monday afternoon, Armand Montiel, a public affairs director with LA DCFS, told NBC News. 
 
 The emotional scene played out on a Facebook live stream — watched by more that 1,000 people — which showed a teary child, wearing a pink shirt and grasping a teddy bear while Rusty Page carried her out of the home and loaded into a black sedan as his wife wailed "I love you Lexi" from the driveway. 
 
 They are taking her! Live footage on our Facebook page. — Save Lexi (@SaveOurLexi) March 21, 2016 
 
 "They fought for you," supporters screamed at the car, as officers prepared to pull away. "The Page family loves you." 
 
 "Our family is so incredibly devastated. Our hearts are broken and we are trying to make sense of everything that has happened with our three other children who witnessed their sister Lexi forcefully ripped away from our family by strangers," the Page family said in a statement Monday night. 
 
 "But nobody could possibly be more devastated than our 6-year-old daughter who found herself restrained in a car and driven away to go and live in a foreign place hundreds of miles from her family, friends, teachers, home and life," the statement said. 
 
 The Page's lawyer said in a statement Sunday that they had been willing to offer the Utah family visitation rights, but they "never responded to offers of compromise." 
 
 "They are not interested in anything except full custody, and they are not thinking about this little girl's best interests," the lawyer's statement said. 
 
 The LA DCFS said in a statement that the department always seeks to act in the best interest of the children it serves. "Often there are no easy solutions, but when a court makes an order, we must follow it," said the department's director, Philip Browning. 
 
 The National Indian Child Welfare Association argues that the decision to re-place Lexi was the right one because "the purpose of foster care is to provide temporary care for children ... not to fast-track the creation of new families when there is extended family available who want to care for the child." 
 
 "The foster family was well aware years ago this girl is an Indian child, whose case is subject to the requirements of the Indian Child Welfare Act," the National Indian Child Welfare Association said in a statement. 
 
 "The Pages were always aware that the goal was to place Lexi with her family, and her permanent placement has been delayed due to the Pages' opposition to the Indian Child Welfare Act," the Choctaw Nation echoed in a statement. "We believe that following the Choctaw Nation's values is in Lexi's best interest." ||||| Graham, center, and Lena Kelly, rear, Lexi's foster aunt and uncle, break down on the street after family services came to take Lexi away from her foster family in Santa Clarita, Calif., Monday, March... (Associated Press) 
 
 Graham, center, and Lena Kelly, rear, Lexi's foster aunt and uncle, break down on the street after family services came to take Lexi away from her foster family in Santa Clarita, Calif., Monday, March 21, 2016. Lexi, who spent most of her life with California foster parents, was removed from her home... (Associated Press) 
 
 LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California family appealed Tuesday to the state's highest court in their fight to keep a 6-year-old foster child who was removed from their home after a lower court said her 1/64th Native American bloodline requires that she live with relatives. 
 
 The family's lawyer, Lori Alvino McGill, filed the request for the California Supreme Court to hear the appeal. 
 
 McGill also requested that custody of the child named Lexi be returned to Rusty and Summer Page until the appeal is decided. 
 
 The Pages have fought efforts under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act to place Lexi with relatives of her father, who is part Choctaw. The Pages argued that Lexi has lived with them since the age of 2 and considers them her family. 
 
 However, a court found that the Pages have not proven Lexi would suffer emotional harm by the transfer. 
 
 The Pages have three children and want to adopt Lexi, who was 17 months old when she was removed from the custody of her birth parents. Her mother had substance abuse problems, and her father had a criminal history, according to court records. 
 
 Dozens of cases involving foster families have gone to court around the country after the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed in the late 1970s. 
 
 Lawmakers found that Native American families were broken up at disproportionately high rates, and that cultural ignorance and biases within the child welfare system were largely to blame. 
 
 Lexi cried and clutched a stuffed bear on Monday as Rusty Page carried her out of his home near Los Angeles and Los Angeles County social workers whisked her away in a waiting car. 
 
 "How is it that a screaming child, saying, 'I want to stay, I'm scared,' how is it in her best interest to pull her from the girl she was before that doorbell rang?" Rusty Page told KNX-AM radio. 
 
 A crowd of friends and neighbors wept, prayed or sang hymns. 
 
 Under the transfer, Lexi will live with a Utah couple who are not Native Americans but are related by marriage to her father. 
 
 The girl's sister is living with the couple, and another sister will be living down the street, said Leslie Heimov of the Children's Law Center of California, Lexi's court-appointed legal representatives. 
 
 "The law is very clear that siblings should be kept together whenever they can be, and they should be placed together even if they were not initially together," Heimov told the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/1pYtXlg ). 
 
 She said Lexi and the Utah family had traded messages and had monthly visits during the past three years. 
 
 "She has a loving relationship with them," Heimov said. "They are not strangers in any way, shape or form." 
 
 The National Indian Child Welfare Association said in a statement that the Pages were aware for years that the girl was an American Indian but chose to "drag out litigation as long as possible, creating instability for the child." 
 
 The Choctaw Nation said it "desires the best for this Choctaw child." 
 
 In 2015, the Bureau of Indian Affairs issued guidance on implementing the Indian Child Welfare Act — clarifying that tribes alone are responsible for determining who is a member. 
 
 Wenona Singel, a law professor at Michigan State University, said membership requirements vary among tribes, with some being more restrictive than others. 
 
 "The issue is not what degree of Choctaw ancestry a child has," Singel said. "Rather the issue is whether the child is a citizen of the tribe in question or eligible for citizenship." 
 
 Singel is a member of a tribe in Michigan. 
 
 There is still considerable disagreement over the application of the law and whether it serves children's best interest, said Ralph Richard Banks, a professor at Stanford Law School. 
 
 Once a child is placed with a Native American family, it is highly unlikely that the decision would be reversed, he added. 
 
 "It would be fairly extraordinary for an appeals court to reverse that," he said. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writer Christine Armario contributed to this report. ||||| By Janna Clark 
 
 A push to enforce current adoption laws could make it more difficult for non-Native American families to adopt Native American children. 
 
 As demonstrated with the court case surrounding the adoption of Baby Veronica, there can be difficulty in adoptions involving Native American children. 
 
 In 2013 after years of custody battles Veronica stayed with her adoptive parents when her biological father, a Native American, dropped his pursuit of custody. 
 
 http://www.fox23.com/news/news/breaking-news/dusten-brown-to-drop-pursuit-of-custody-for-baby-v/ndd29/ 
 
 FOX23’s Janna Clark found there are many cases like that and the Indian Child Welfare Act could make it difficult for non-Native American parents to adopt Native American children. 
 
 The Bureau of Indian Affairs is pushing for the enforcement but some say it's not what's best for the children. 
 
 Legal documents call her S.A.W., she’s a little girl who bonded deeply with (her) foster mother but after one year the court almost removed (her) from the only stable home she had ever known because she's 1/128 Native American. 
 
 It took a battle in court for her to get to stay with her foster family. 
 
 “I don't know what they're trying to accomplish,” said Becki Murphy, an attorney. 
 
 She said it’s one of two scenarios that could happen with a Native American child adoption. 
 
 She said either a child's placed in a non-tribal home and later a tribal family decides to adopt the child or a child is placed in a tribal home and family members later decide they want the child. 
 
 In both situations she said children are torn away. 
 
 “I will always object to a removal, tribal or not, if you're trying to remove a child over 6 months, if the placement is not causing them harm and willing to make it permanent. I will not object I don't care who you are,” said Murphy. 
 
 Murphy says some tribes wait too long intervene after children have stayed in a stable home for months. 
 
 “We should not be revisiting this 10 months, 12 months, 24 months (later.) I have a case 10 years old,” she said. 
 
 The court looks at the Indian Child Welfare Act and to help enforce it and the Bureau of Indian Affairs put out the proposed rule. 
 
 They told FOX23 they didn't want to answer questions about it but we found on their website that says they want to "to protect the best interest of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families." 
 
 “I don't believe ICWA hurts children. I believe the application by certain tribes does cause harm,” said Murphy. 
 
 FOX23 called the Cherokee Nation and they emailed a statement that says in part: 
 
 "Rule changes we are discussing are long overdue and our children and families can't wait any longer. They give greater guidance and clearer instructions to state courts working with tribes. - Cherokee Nation Deputy Chief S. Joe Crittenden.” 
 
 Both tribal and public meetings about this will take place Thursday: 
 
 The public meeting is from 1-4pm at the 
 
 A push to enforce current adoption laws could make it more difficult for non-Native American families to adopt Native American children. 
 
 As demonstrated with the court case surrounding the adoption of Baby Veronica, there can be difficulty in adoptions involving Native American children. 
 
 In 2013 after years of custody battles Veronica stayed with her adoptive parents when her biological father, a Native American, dropped his pursuit of custody. 
 
 FOX23’s Janna Clark found there are many cases like that and the Indian Child Welfare Act could make it difficult for non-Native American parents to adopt Native American children. 
 
 The Bureau of Indian Affairs is pushing for the enforcement but some say it's not what's best for the children. 
 
 
 
 Legal documents call her S.A.W., she’s a little girl who bonded deeply with (her) foster mother but after one year the court almost removed (her) from the only stable home she had ever known because she's 1/128 Native American. 
 
 It took a battle in court for her to get to stay with her foster family. 
 
 “I don't know what they're trying to accomplish,” said Becki Murphy, an attorney. 
 
 She said it’s one of two scenarios that could happen with a Native American child adoption. 
 
 She said either a child's placed in a non-tribal home and later a tribal family decides to adopt the child or a child is placed in a tribal home and family members later decide they want the child. 
 
 In both situations she said children are torn away. 
 
 “I will always object to a removal, tribal or not, if you're trying to remove a child over 6 months, if the placement is not causing them harm and willing to make it permanent. I will not object I don't care who you are,” said Murphy. 
 
 Murphy says some tribes wait too long intervene after children have stayed in a stable home for months. 
 
 “We should not be revisiting this 10 months, 12 months, 24 months (later.) I have a case 10 years old,” she said. 
 
 The court looks at the Indian Child Welfare Act and to help enforce it and the Bureau of Indian Affairs put out the proposed rule. 
 
 They told FOX23 they didn't want to answer questions about it but we found on their website that says they want to "to protect the best interest of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families." 
 
 “I don't believe ICWA hurts children. I believe the application by certain tribes does cause harm,” said Murphy. 
 
 FOX23 called the Cherokee Nation and they emailed a statement that says in part: 
 
 "Rule changes we are discussing are long overdue and our children and families can't wait any longer. They give greater guidance and clearer instructions to state courts working with tribes. - Cherokee Nation Deputy Chief S. Joe Crittenden.” 
 
 Both tribal and public meetings about this will take place Thursday: 
 
 The public meeting is from 1-4pm at the Tulsa Marriott Southern Hills near 71st Street and Lewis. ||||| Driving home to Prince George from a vacation to the Calgary area on June 8, Angela Shymanski had a lullaby CD playing that helped to provide a soothing atmosphere for her two napping children, Lexi, 5, and Peter, 10 weeks old. 
 
 Unfortunately, the lullaby also worked on Angela. As she felt her eyes close once, she gave herself a talking to and because of the steep drop off along the road she knew it wasn't safe to pull over. So she promised herself she would stop in Jasper for a break so she could continue home safely. 
 
 Angela nodded off despite her best efforts. Her SUV traveled down a 12-metre embankment about 15 kilometres outside of Jasper, coming to rest with the front wheels up against a tree and its back wheels up in the air. Angela was knocked unconscious by the impact and suffered a broken back and extensive internal injuries. Her daughter Lexi woke to her baby brother Peter's cries. 
 
 When Lexi realized her mother couldn't wake up, she knew she had to get help. 
 
 Lexi undid her car seat's five-point harness - a feat she had only accomplished twice before - jumped to the ground and scrambled up the steep embankment barefoot to flag down a passersby. The first people to stop were a mom and dad with a boy, said Lexi, who was born on the same day as Peter, March 31, five years earlier. 
 
 "The dad went down to get Peter," she said. The next person to stop was a man who later was identified as a paramedic who knew not to move the still unconscious Angela. 
 
 "He stayed with me until I regained consciousness and I could see Lexi lying down next to the highway and that someone else had the baby," said Angela. 
 
 Because the "good stranger" - as Lexi called him - didn't have a piece of paper, he committed Travis' number to memory so he could call him. He called again a few days later to check up on them. 
 
 "It took him five tries before he could get cell service to call 911," said Angela. 
 
 Paramedics could only reach the car by using ropes to navigate the steep terrain that Lexi had climbed up barefoot. 
 
 "It's just so crazy that she did that," said her grateful mom. 
 
 The family was taken by ambulance to Seton-Jasper Healthcare Centre, and then Angela and Lexi were air ambulanced to the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton while Peter was taken by ground ambulance and arrived later that night because they thought he was fine. 
 
 It was later determined that Peter had a small bleed on his brain and then another more significant bleed was discovered by a neurologist in Edmonton. While he was under observation they discovered swelling which had to relieved, and Peter was rushed into surgery to have subdural drains put in his head to relieve the pressure. He was kept in the hospital for six days. Doctors advised Travis and Angela to be sure Peter was reaching developmental milestones. So far, he is doing very well. 
 
 As a result of the accident, Lexi had a little scratch on her chin and was really sore for about a week because of soft tissue injury in her neck and the pain continues to linger. 
 
 "Once Lexi was home and started doing her gymnastics and after her swimming lessons she was saying her neck was sore," said Angela. It will take time for her to heal and not just from her physical injuries. 
 
 "For Lexi it's more emotional trauma," said Angela, looking down at her hands clasped in her lap. "She's had nightmares but I'm hoping when things settle down those will disappear. I carry major guilt over this whole thing." 
 
 Angela was told she needed to be resuscitated twice between the crash location and her arrival at the hospital in Edmonton. 
 
 "I was in pretty rough shape when I got to the hospital," said Angela. "I had small fractures in my neck and upper back, and then I had broken ribs and internal injuries. The spleen had to be taken out and my liver was really badly damaged but they took all my organs out to check for rips and tears and the very next day they were going to do back surgery on me but a girl who was in a motorcycle accident, whose entire back was broken, was given surgery instead." 
 
 It was a good decision because Angela's blood levels were low because of the internal bleeding. She has been able to regain some strength and heal but she still goes for consultations with surgeons on a regular basis to see how her back is healing. Her L1 and L4 vertebrae were broken and Angela was told if the break was even a centimetre higher she would have ended up a paraplegic. 
 
 Angela is still using a wheelchair to get around and has a hospital bed in her living room. Just this week she was given the go ahead to use a walker but her left leg has suffered nerve damage and she doesn't seem to have full control of it. 
 
 "When I stand, my leg doesn't always get the message to walk," said Angela. 
 
 "So when I use the walker, I've had days where it's impressive and then other times I walk with my right leg and I drag my left leg behind," said Angela. "And that's even more frustrating because I think I'm making progress and then I'm not." 
 
 After 44 days (Angela keeps count), she was allowed to hold Peter unassisted. She was able to nurse him throughout those early days but she couldn't move him from one side to the other or hold him on her shoulder. 
 
 "Now I can hold him but he's 14 pounds and because I couldn't build up to it, I find he's really heavy," said Angela, whose abdomen is still healing from the massive surgery she endured to repair her organs. 
 
 Doctors told Angela it would take about a year for her organs to go back to normal and she talked to people who have had a similar back injury and they told her even a year and a half later they still experience chronic pain, something she endures every day. 
 
 Right now their home is a very busy place with people coming and going often as family and friends gather to provide support, meals and take on cleaning duty to help make things easier for the injured family. 
 
 "Everything has been quite chaotic," said Angela. "Even now I sometimes wonder if this is a dream - is this real? And this is nothing compared to what some people go through. In the same trauma room that I was in people were waking up to find out people in the car with them had died or they're waking up and they don't have a leg, you know? It was crazy in that room. It was terrifying. So we're really lucky in that way. We're all alive." 
 
 Angela is a swim instructor and runs a bed and breakfast out of the home and of course, because of the accident, she's not able to continue with either right now, while Travis is on leave from work to care for the family. 
 
 "Thank goodness we have Travis," said Angela. "We need to do whatever we can to help him so he can keep going because caring for all of us keeps him very busy. We're all just in survival mode right now." 
 
 A gofundme account was set up for the family at www.gofundme.com/yrkpa9s and as she went to look at who was donating, Angela said she only recognized about a quarter the people contributing. She finds it unbelievable that strangers would donate to her family. 
 
 STARS air ambulance, Give A Mile - a non-profit organization where people donate air miles so people can visit loved ones who are either ill or injured - and Hope Air, which provides air transportation for those in need of medical treatment outside their community, have all been very helpful. 
 
 "I'd like to thank everyone," said Angela. 
 
 "It's been just amazing how people have helped us."
– A 6-year-old California girl whose birth parents were plagued by substance abuse and criminal infractions was taken in at age 2 by a foster family. But Alexandria (aka Lexi) is also 1/64th Choctaw Native American, which means where she ends up is dictated by 1978's Indian Child Welfare Act—a law that "seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian families." Rusty and Summer Page had long fought to retain custody of Lexi, but on Monday the girl was removed from their home by the LA Department of Child & Family Services, NBC News reports. "Our family is so incredibly devastated," the Pages said in a statement, "but nobody could possibly be more devastated than our 6-year-old daughter." By court order, the Pages weren't allowed to tell Lexi beforehand she'd be taken, the Los Angeles Times reports. Lexi is now with a Utah couple related by marriage to Lexi's biological dad, who has Choctaw blood but has never lived on a reservation himself. The move came after "reunification efforts" with Lexi's biological dad went south, and he, the tribe, and DCFS recommended Lexi go to Utah—even though that couple is "non-Indian" and Summer Page actually does have "American Indian heritage," per the Pages' Change.org petition. The National Indian Child Welfare Association says in a statement that foster care is meant to be "temporary," not to "fast-track the creation of new families when there is extended family available"; a Choctaw Nation statement says the Pages always knew the goal was to place Lexi with "family." On Tuesday, the Pages appealed to California's highest court to reverse the decision, reports the AP. (This London mom sued NYC after her child was put in foster care.)