NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending May 28, 2026

● Because of its vast unchecked power and no real accountability, few (if any) government power centers are easier to weaponize than the family police. Look who’s weaponizing them now:

Abortion, Every Day has learned that Child Protective Services (CPS) has targeted mothers in multiple states who helped their daughters seek out abortions. In one case, CPS removed a teen from her home—and threatened her mother with murder charges—to stop her from getting an abortion. Another mother, one who lives in a state where abortion is legal, faced an investigation from both CPS and local police after helping her teen end a pregnancy. 

These stories—shared with AED by the attorneys and advocates at If/When/How—represent a new and largely unexamined consequence of the end of Roe. It’s no longer enough that women have to worry they’ll die of sepsis while surrounded by doctors that can’t legally treat them, or that they’ll be arrested for how they dispose of their miscarriages. Now the government is using family separation as an anti-abortion … 

See also the sidebar on how If/When/How is fighting back. It starts with another example of family police brutality. 

Some better news on the litigation front: 

● He’s known in court papers as K.W. He was never accused of harming his newborn son in any way. And for a week, he was allowed to keep his newborn, unmolested by New York City’s family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services. But, as amNY reports,  according to his lawsuit, suddenly, six days later, the family police showed up, took the child – and held him in foster care for three years. 

Though they had six days to do it, ACS never asked a court for permission. Suddenly, after leaving the boy and his father alone for six days, ACS decided the case was an “emergency” and snatched away the child without going to court first. Such abuse of “emergency” power is common in New York City and all over the country – something to keep in mind whenever the family police and their apologists dredge up that tired lie about “we can’t take children on our own.” From the story: 

My infant son was torn from my arms by ACS when he was just a few days old and put into foster care with strangers,” said K.W., the father in his appeal. “I fought with all my heart and might to get him back for nearly three years. After my son came home, we’ve been fighting to right that devastating wrong.” 

K.W. hasn’t won his suit. But an appellate court at least is allowing it to move forward. 

● And just today (May 28) the Family Justice Law Center, which represents K.W., joined by several other groups, including the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice, which represents children in these cases, have filed a class-action suit to stop ACS’s rampant abuse of its emergency removal power. As FJLC explains: 

ACS often violates families’ basic constitutional rights by conducting emergency removals in situations that are not true emergencies. ACS’s own data show that most child removals now happen without prior judicial authorization – almost 1,500 last year alone. And when these cases finally reach family court, at the very first hearing judges find no justification for children to remain in state custody nearly 30 percent of the time – indicating that many of these purportedly “emergency” removals never met the legal standard for a removal in the first place, yet the lasting harm has already been done.

As one of the plaintiffs said:

“ACS workers are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and you have to be very cautious with them when you’re a Black or Latino parent,” said Plaintiff Denise Archer, who filed under a pseudonym to protect her family. “I tried to go to ACS to seek some type of assistance when my family was going through a hard time, and it turned into an almost three-year separation where I had to fight every step of the way to get my kids returned home. Even though ACS is supposed to be the entity you go to when you’re a family in need, they have their own hidden agendas, and my family and I had to pay the price of that.”

● Families won a big victory from New York State’s highest court, the Court of Appeals: The Court is refusing to allow what amounts to a shadow, hidden foster care system that started in Illinois and metastasized into many other states to take hold in New York. I have a blog post about what should be called sugar-frosted foster care, including links to stories about the decision from The Imprint and Courthouse News Service. 

● In New Mexico, Source NM reports that the state branch of the ACLU and two courageous legislators are suing to block an order issued by the governor demanding that any child who tests positive for certain substances be confiscated at birth. From the story: 

The petition cited a December letter signed by more than 70 New Mexico providers saying that pregnant women may forgo prenatal care or treatment due to concerns of losing their children and called the directive “dangerous.” 

Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena (D-Las Cruces), who joined Sen. Linda López (D-Albuquerque) in filing the petition, told Source NM the policy is “patently unlawful.” 

“We have a state-sanctioned policy, when we are removing kids without an individualized finding, not based on what’s happening in their particular family, in their particular pregnancy, their circumstances, just a blanket policy that says, ‘if there was exposure in this pregnancy, we are automatically taking your child at birth,’” Lara Cadena said. “So for me, that’s a dangerous precedent; among other things, it’s going to push people further into the shadows.” 

● And in Maine, the Maine Monitor reports, the state Supreme Court overturned the termination of five children’s rights to their parents (a more accurate term than termination of parental rights) that was based largely on the fact that a supervisor told the court she read in a record somewhere that the mother allegedly hadn’t passed two drug tests (which, by the way are notoriously unreliable to begin with). 

And some better news about safety – if the lessons are learned 

● Ten days ago, we published a post about calculating the price of foster-care panic. Because there are now so many studies documenting how, in typical cases, children placed in foster care fare worse even than comparably-maltreated children left in their own homes, it is now possible to calculate how many children will suffer serious harm to their health, and even premature death, because they were needlessly thrown into foster care. 

It works both ways. It’s also possible to calculate the lives saved in places like New York City and New Jersey that have safely reduced foster care placements. This week, we have a post with those data. 

● It’s a lesson that urgently needs to be learned right now in nearby Suffolk County, where it looks like a foster-care panic may have started, for the usual reasons. 

Legislators seem to be getting smarter, too  

● You may recall that some rural counties in Minnesota are whining about a new law requiring them to actually get serious about helping families so their children don’t endure the trauma of needless foster care. They wanted implementation of the law delayed. But Minnesota lawmakers didn’t get suckered. Instead, they passed legislation which, if signed by the governor, will give the counties some more money to do what they should have been doing all along.  One element of the bill is concerning, though.  As The Imprint reports: 

If enacted, counties would receive the funds based on the number of children who live within their borders as well as the number of screened-in reports of child abuse or neglect, and open child protection cases. 

The problem with this should be obvious. 

● In March, I wrote about how the family police agency in Tennessee wanted the authority to get rid of “problem” foster youth. They wanted to be able to throw in jail any foster child who they felt was getting out of line, or even threatening to get out of line. Lawmakers refused, in part because of the superb advocacy efforts of a former foster youth, Ella Bet-Ami. Now The Imprint has a profile of Bet-Ami. 

In other news: 

From NCCPR's op-ed column in CT Mirror: 

If throwing cliches at a problem would solve it, Connecticut would have the best child welfare system in America. Instead, the tired thinking reflected in those tired cliches [from legislators and advocates] explains the real problem: A state that once really might have become the best, or at least the least bad, child welfare system in America has been slouching back to mediocrity or worse. 

● Two children with diabetes died in Arizona group homes after not getting the medical care they need. Now, KNXV-TV reports, the lawyer for their families wants the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the Arizona family police agency for discriminating against the disabled, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It would be the second such investigation in Arizona. As the story notes: 

In 2024, the DOJ's Civil Rights Division found DCS discriminated against parents and children with hearing disabilities and forced the agency to make changes. 

● The Imprint reports that the federal Administration for Children’s Services is making it easier for states and localities to incorporate seven specific programs into their plans under the Family First Act. One of those programs is Homebuilders – possibly the only approved program under this act that actually can provide families with what they often need most – concrete help. And oh, how the take-the-child-and-run crowd hates Homebuilders! 

In this week’s reminder that The Horror Stories Go in All Directions: 

Anybody see a pattern in these two stories? 

● From KARE-TV, Minneapolis:  

A north metro psychiatric residential treatment program is closing at least temporarily after its license was suspended over "an imminent risk of harm." … 

DHS alleged that the children served by the program did not have their basic rights protected. MDH alleges that suspected maltreatment was not reported, medications were not administered safely and accurately, there was not enough appropriately trained staff to ensure residents' treatment needs were met, and treatment services did not include adequate supervision to support residents' safety. DHS also alleges the facility was not kept in good repair. 

● From WBFF-TV Baltimore:

Maryland officials are preparing to remove foster children from Silver Oak Academy after the state confirmed for the first time that youth will no longer remain at the troubled Carroll County facility beyond June 30, marking the clearest sign yet that the privately operated program is effectively shutting down. 

This update follows months of reporting by Spotlight on Maryland documenting more than 100 emergency calls tied to the campus since January 2025, including reports of assaults, arson, runaway juveniles and staff concerns that the young residents were “overtaking the campus.” 

And, WBFF reports, the state either can’t or won’t even say how many children are missing from foster care. 

But this is not deterring Maryland from spending $1.2 billion over five years to warehouse children in 637 beds in a bunch of other institutions.