The plight of a 6-year-old girl is causing a stir in Santa Clarita, a community outside Los Angeles. The state of California and LA County recently removed her from the home of a Christian family with whom she’s been living since she was two.

The reason:  Race.

The little girl’s name is Alexandria; she goes by Lexi, Lexi Page.

She was taken from the home of Rusty and Summer Page, her foster parents, who want to adopt her, but can’t because they are not Native American.

Lexi is — like — 1.5 percent Choctaw. Because Lexi has a Native American great-great-great-great grandparent on her father’s side, she was taken from the home of the Pages, who have lovingly parented her for going on 5 years, and their children whom she considers siblings, who love her dearly.

A March 18th court order demanded Lexi be removed from the Page home and taken to Utah to live with a couple who may or may not be distant relatives of her biological father. Social workers carried a sobbing Lexi, to a waiting car. Friends were there, some scolding, some singing hymns and praying. Now, when Zoe, the youngest Page, hears the doorbell she says “Lexi’s home.”

This is all taking place under a federal law: the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, enacted 40 years ago to give Native American groups the right to take custody of children who can claim Native American ancestry.

At 17 months of age, Lexi was removed from the custody of her mother who had a severe problem with substance abuse and has lost custody of at least six other children. Her father has an extensive criminal history and despite reunification efforts, was unable to retain custody of Lexi either. The dad, with his miniscule Indian ancestry, is an enrolled member of an Indian tribe. Under ICWA, that makes Lexi Indian and the tribe gets to say what happens to her. When Lexi was a baby, the tribe allowed her to be placed in foster care in hopes she would be reunified with her dad. It became apparent that’s a lost cause. So the court, despite the wonderful results of loving and consistent parenting by the Pages, ordered that Lexi be placed  where a couple of her dad’s other kids have been placed, with so-called relatives in Utah, amazingly, a couple who is not even Native American.

Laws requiring a child’s best interest be considered would apply here if Lexi were not 1/64th Indian.

The Goldwater Institute is challenging the ICWA, saying it “was written out of a concern that the state courts were breaking up tribes by placing Native American children to live off-reservation.” But now, four decades later, the Institute’s attorneys say the law “penalizes Indian children by subjecting them to different and less favorable rules than other children.”

It’s really discrimination against a child because she’s got a bit of Native American blood.