This goes far deeper than just this one girl. The adoption industry has been trying to do away with the Indian Child Welfare for years. It is obvious from the ridiculous slant in this article that the adoption industry in winning the battle of framing.
Firstly, and most importantly, she was not taken from being 1/64th indian, that is simply not the case. The Indian Child Welfare Act only applies to children who:
1) are enrolled members of a tribe, or 2) are eligible for enrollment in a tribe AND have a parent enrolled in the tribe.
Tribes have the authority to establish their own enrollment requirements. To my knowledge the most common enrollment requirement is 1/4 indian blood. In this case, the requirement must be you have prove lineage.
Either she herself is enrolled or her dad is enrolled. People generally dont enroll in a tribe for shits and giggles, it can be time consuming to do so, especially for a tribe where you have to prove lineage. Point being, there is probably a connection to the tribe here.
The article makes it sound like no one in the family has any connection and just being Native American means you can be "taken away". Think about that for a very short amount of time and you'll see how that doesn't make any sense. How many people say they are part indian but dont know how much or which tribe, from the article you'd think those people would also be bound by ICWA, but they obviously are not. This girl or her family more likely than not has a connection to her tribe and heritage, that connection isn't determined by your blood quantum.
Second, this is a foster family, right? Foster care is supposed to be temporary, not permanent. The father's parental rights have not been terminated, and he's actually fighting to get back for like 5 years now. A few articles have mentioned that the foster family and their attorneys have put up every obstacle they can to keep the father from regaining custody. The article makes it sound like the dad just has not been around for years, he has been.
Third, the family is Utah has already adopted the girls half sister, and the girls biological sister lives down the street. This is not some family stepping in just because. They clearly are interested in keep their family together, distant or not.
I'm seeing this story blow up all over, and its really frustrating that such a blatantly one-sided story is working on people.