>> she's known as baby veronica, and she was at the center of a high-profile custody battle. her adoptive parents are white; her father is native american and has been fighting for her alongside his tribe. the case was tried in the united states supreme court. at the heart of the case is the indian child welfare act, or icwa, which mandates that every effort be made to keep native children with their relatives or tribe. congress passed icwa in 1978 in response to an alarmingly high number of native children being removed from their homes and placed with non-native families - the tie to their cultures and communities severed in the process. 35 years later, the fundamental

protections of the law are still being fought for. >> the requirements of that act apply from the minute indian parents and indian kids walk into the courtroom and it's just not happening. here in south dakota, native children are only 13 percent of the children in the state but more than 50 percent of those in foster care. and the majority are placed with non-native families, in group homes or institutions. >> we welcome you to beautiful pine ridge south dakota, where leaders are born. for the lakota people here, the issue isn't just about child custody, it's about cultural survival. in the southwest corner of south dakota is the town of

rapid city. a federal class-action lawsuit has been filed against officials here, alleging that the state routinely violates the indian child welfare act. i went to meet one of the mothers involved in the lawsuit, madonna pappan. >> hi there. >> how's it going, madonna? i'm wab from al jazeera. >> nice to meet you. come on in. >> thank you. >> i don't like it. >> okay then don't eat that baby. not that part anyway. eat that part. madonna's two children were taken into state custody two years ago. her daughter was removed after madonna's husband drove intoxicated with the young girl in the car. dakotah, her son, was at home with a sitter at the time. >> my son had no reason to be taken and they took him from me at school two days later. i requested to see him before they had taken him so i could talk to him and explain to him what was going to happen. and i didn't get that chance. >> i was so frustrated. i was not happy.

i said, i said okay i'll go. i won't put up a fuss, so i just went. at the court hearing for madonna's children, the judge ordered that they be kept in state custody for 60 days. the children were separated from each other and placed in non-native foster homes. dakotah threatened to hurt himself and was moved to a mental health facility. >> when you made that threat were you serious about it or what were you thinking? >> i was serious. i did not like it. i was so scared what was going to happen. i thought i was going to be away forever. >> only 11 years old at the time, dakotah was placed on risperidone, an antipsychotic, and transferred to an institution. south dakota institutionalizes more children under 12 than any other state in the country. >> they say they did it because they were trying to protect my

children well they didn't protect my children, they traumatized them. you've got the hiccups? madonna says the department of social services never told her about her rights under icwa. instead, with help from an attorney, her tribe took over her case, and they returned custody of her children. >>if it wasn't for icwa, i don't think i would have gotten my kids back. so where's she at right now? is she with you? jolene abourezk runs the icwa office in rapid city for her tribe, the oglala sioux. she represents parents in court, fights to get cases transferred back to the tribe and places children with native foster families or kin. south dakota removes children from their homes more frequently than almost any other state in the country. >> my clients, they're so scared, anytime they see a social worker it's like seeing an officer, a police officer.

it's not like here's some social worker offering to help me and my family improve in some way, the immediate response is they are here to take my kids. joleen believes many of the removals could be avoided. >> we've had grandmas who lived a block down the road who tried to get their grandkids. law enforcement calls dss. if they just place with the relative it can avoid so much. once you get into that system it's just so hard to get out because it's just one thing after another. the crucial moment when a judge decides whether to hold children in custody comes during a hearing held 48 hours after a child is removed. the lawsuit against the state argues that parents aren't given a fair hearing and children are being removed for unjustifiably long periods of time. >> they have to give those parents a chance to present evidence in their own defense. a chance to fight the state's

attempt to take their children away from them and to do that in a meaningful fair hearing in front of a judge who has not made up his mind that whatever dss says goes. hanna contends that there is evidence presented at the hearings, but only from one side. mark vargo is the state's attorney for pennington county, and he's one of the officials named in the class action lawsuit. he's the only person from the state who agreed to speak with us. >> so i'm a lay person and i hear a police report or a report from a social worker being admitted into these 48 hour hearings and i think: evidence. can you explain why that doesn't mean evidentiary hearing? >> the 48 hour hearing under icwa according to the state supreme court was designed to ensure that parents are on notice, that they know what's happening to them. and to make sure that they have the availability of council. it is not the place that you try

the case. >> they tell us this is not an adversarial proceeding, this is something we're all just supposed to go along with. from the indian perspective, who sees this in terms of history, this is about adversarial as it gets. when the state is trying to take their children, they're just following in a historical tradition that started a long time ago.

determining using some sort of subjective interpretation of their policy as to whether or not your particular report was actually abusive, because if it doesn't contain language that specifically threatens you directly or is targeted towards you specifically, they may not consider it abuse. they may consider it offensive. and in that case they just recommend that you block that person. >> i don't want to minimise this, because i mean, there's some really horrible things that are on line, and it's not - it's not just twitter, what has happened through social media and the anonymity of the net is that you see websites, hate-filled websites targetting all sorts of groups, popping up. there has been a huge number of

those that exist as well.

>> audiences are intelligent and they know that their

>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. one of the most powerful storms hit yesterday in are philippines. 100 people are dead in the city of takwoban. deputy prien minister says are diplomatic talks are fruitful but there's a lot to do. iran considers russia