text: The girl has had regular visits with her out-of-state relatives for some time now, Heimov said. In Utah, she will live with one of her biological sisters. Another sister lives within walking distance, Heimov said. 
   
   
   
   "There are two families that love her," she said. "The court has made a decision. We need to follow the law, and we need to enforce the court orders." 
   
   
   
   In a statement, Philip Browning, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, said that "when a court makes an order, we must follow it." 
   
   
   
   On Monday, a hush fell over the crowd of protesters when social workers came to the Pages' front door. A few silent minutes passed before the door was finally opened. 
   
   
   
   Rusty Page carried the youngster outside. The girl, wearing a pink shirt and a braid in her hair, clutched a brown teddy bear. Placed in the backseat of a social worker's car, she cried. 
   
   
   
   Page said that he was ordered by the court not to discuss the situation with the girl and that she had no idea she would be taken away. The protesters gathered a few houses away so she wouldn't hear or see them. ||||| 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. ||||| Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 
   
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   The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is a federal law that seeks to keep American Indian children with American Indian/Alaska Native families. Congress passed ICWA in 1978 in response to the alarmingly high number of Indian children being removed from their homes by both public and private agencies. The intent of Congress under ICWA was to "protect the best interests of Indian children and to promote the stability and security of Indian tribes and families" (25 U.S.C. § 1902). ICWA sets federal requirements that apply to state child custody proceedings involving an Indian child who is a member of or eligible for membership in a federally recognized tribe. 
   
   ICWA is an integral policy framework on which tribal child welfare programs rely. It provides a structure and requirements for how public and private child welfare agencies and state courts view and conduct their work to serve tribal children and families. It also acknowledges and promotes the role that tribal governments play in supporting tribal families, both on and off tribal lands. However, as is the case with many laws, proper implementation of ICWA requires vigilance, resources, and advocacy. 
   
   Resources for Families 
   
   If you have questions regarding an ICWA case or other Indian child welfare issues, please review the following online resources and the Frequently Asked Questions before contacting the NICWA office. Please be aware that NICWA cannot provide any legal advice. Also note that NICWA is not a direct service provider. We do not provide case management. If you contact us, our staff will do our best to answer your questions within a reasonable timeframe and direct you toward helpful resources. 
   
   Finding Legal Help 
   
   Many families benefit from having a lawyer on their case. Under ICWA, parents and Indian custodians are entitled to have the court appoint them an attorney if they can't afford one. Families can also look up legal aid offices that can provide free or low-cost legal help by going here and entering their zip code. You can also find a list of legal aid offices that specialize in Indian law topics like ICWA here. 
   
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   NICWA and ICWA Compliance 
   
   NICWA strives to support tribal governments in these efforts, especially where tribes do not have the resources or information to respond as they would like. NICWA can partner with tribes to effectively address ICWA compliance; through our relationships with key policymakers, state and federal officials, media representatives, and non-Indian organizations, we provide tribes with additional resources to address the systemic issues that arise in ICWA implementation. Below are some of the services that NICWA can provide tribes and their partners to assist in the proper implementation of ICWA. 
   
   Training about the basic legal requirements and social work practice tips on how to best implement the law in both social service and court settings. Development of tribal-specific program models to help tribes increase their capacity to respond effectively in ICWA cases and increase their ability to provide care for their member children and families. Enhance tribal-state relations through technical assistance to develop intergovernmental agreements and contracts as well as to identify opportunities for collaboration with state agencies and contracted providers. Increase knowledge of existing funding opportunities and the steps needed to secure federal funding to support child and family related services. This includes strategies tribes can use for adapting federal requirements while maintaining compliance and emphasizing tribal cultural practices. Advocate for policy solutions, legislative and regulatory, to implementation problems that practitioners experience while implementing ICWA. Provide case consultation to tribal family members, agencies, social work practitioners, attorneys, and courts on the proper implementation of ICWA in particular cases. Monitor and consult with tribal litigants in precedent-setting cases in state and federal courts that are reviewing ICWA policy and implementation. Follow media accounts of ICWA implementation and provide reliable and accurate information about the law. NICWA provides a national perspective of ICWA implementation through op-eds, news articles, media interviews and content, research for media outlets, and support of tribal efforts to address media requests for information on specific cases or program issues. Assist tribes and states in the development and implementation of ICWA data gathering and evaluation efforts. Provide regular updates to tribal leadership and representatives at national and regional tribal organizations to keep Indian Country’s leadership apprised of the most current information on ICWA and strategize about appropriate solutions to address challenges. 
   
   ICWA Reports and Documents 
   
   Tools for ICWA Compliance 
   
  
target: – 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.)