Jad Abumrad (host) / main Radiolab host voice

But in most cases, he says, the reasons wouldn't have stood up in court.

They would put papers in front of them and they would sign.

They didn't know what they were signing.

Some families.

If they could, they tried to fight it.

But they usually couldn't afford to.

Look, the tribal people are poor.

asking how many Indian kids are in foster care.

Foster care and adoptive placement and institutional placement, juvenile facilities.

And what he arrived at at the end of that analysis is a pretty shocking number.

25 to 35 percent of Indian children nationwide were in out-of-home placements.

That's a real number?

That is a real number.

That's the number you see cited again and again.

Or is it like a policy?

Well, this is basically social workers very much acting in the spirit of the day.

Because you have to keep in mind that in the 50s and 60s,

You have all these government policies that are put in place whose entire purpose is basically to try to once and for all solve this Indian problem that's gone on and on.

You've got this guy in 1953 who's a senator from Utah who starts basically trying to terminate the tribes.

You mean like take away their sovereignty?