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10 They override States’ authority to determine—and implement through their courts—the child custody and welfare policies they deem most appropriate for their citizens. And in doing so, the mandates harm vulnerable children and their parents. In my view, the Constitution cannot countenance this result. The guarantee of dual sovereignty embodied in the constitutional structure “is not so ephemeral as to dissipate” simply because Congress invoked a so-called plenary power. Seminole Tribe of Fla., 517 U. S., at 72. The challenged ICWA provisions effectively “nullify” a State’s authority to conduct state child custody proceedings in accordance with its own preferred family relations policies, a prerogative that States have exercised for centuries. Dick, 208 U. S., at 353. Congress’s Indian affairs power, broad as it is, does not extend that far.

The indicators we previously identified also signal that ICWA exceeds Congress’s constitutional bounds. See Lara, 541 U. S., at 203–205. First, the law has “an unusual legislative objective.” Id., at 203. ICWA’s attempt to control local judicial proceedings in a core field of state concern departs significantly from other Indian affairs legislation that we have sanctioned—laws that typically regulated actual commerce, related to tribal lands and governance, or fulfilled treaty obligations. See (, dissenting). Second, the law brings about “radical changes in tribal status,” effectively granting tribes veto power over