States enact child protective laws because of unconstitutional demands of the U.S. Congress - splitting families for money

I was reading recently a certain public document, a review of "efforts" of the New York State Court system and the child protective system to merge their information sharing databases.

In that interesting document, my attention was caught by this phrase:

Every law student, in a required Constitutional Law class in law school, must learn by heart the principle that the U.S. Congress has NO POWER to create legislation providing for general welfare of citizens of sovereign states, that is the power of the states or the people specifically reserved to the states or directly to the people under the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically held that the Congress has no power to regulate "for the promotion of the general welfare".

And yet, here we go - the Adoption and Safe Families Act, a statute actively supported by Hillary Clinton and signed into law by Bill Clinton, 

"placed new obligations on the courts and child welfare agencies by creating statutory timeframes to expedite achievement of safe and permanent homes for children in foster care system".

This statement is glaringly illiterate because it somehow points at "obligations" of states arising under a federal statute that promotes general welfare - and thus unconstitutional.

Yet, termination of parental rights must be decided through adherence to STATE statutes.

And, even if the federal government dangles money in front of state governments in terms of federal aid for child protective services, such "strings attached" can be offered only as an incentive to act.

When such money is used as a tool of coercion - which is openly recognized in the "Project"'s report, the statute imposing such coercion, as well as any state statutory and regulatory law generated as a consequence or requirement of such a federal statute, is also unconstitutional.

Once again, what I said above is not any kind of brain-storming, it is Constitutional Law 101 taught as a mandatory course in law school.  To all students.  Including judges.  And attorneys for social services.

Look what kind of "obligations" this unconstitutional federal statute "requires" of the states:

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Termination of Parental Rights (TPR). States are required to file a petition to terminate parental rights immediately and, concurrently to identify, recruit, process and approve a qualified adoptive family, in the case of:

a child who has been in foster care for 15 of the most recent 22 months;
a child who the court has determined to be an abandoned infant (as defined in state law); or
a court has determined that the parent assaulted the child or killed or assaulted another of their children.

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And, that termination is very nicely arranged by social services by:

1) removing the child from the care of the parents, often through coercion and intimidation, often "by consent" (when social services, fortified with police, without a court order or warrant, come to the parent's home and claim that parents MUST surrender children - or else);

2) denying parents access to the children for 15 months;

3) lying in Family Court to prevent return of the child at pre-trial hearings that allow hearsay in - and boy do social put in hearsay, rumors, in bulk;

4) weaning the child off their ties to biological families by coercing them to call foster parents "Mom" and "Dad" (happened regularly in child neglect and abuse cases I handled - where cases themselves were fabricated).

The "15 to 22 months" time frame operates during the time when the parent is not yet adjudicated as having done anything wrong to the child!

If court child neglect proceedings last 15 months, and sometimes discovery, motion practice and trial dates spaced out by the court months apart result in such delays, then social services have a leverage over the parent in threatening that the parent's parental rights over the child will be terminated ANYWAY, whatever the decision of the Family Court may be - simply because the child was in foster care (rightfully or wrongfully) for 15 months.

And that is - a "requirement" of federal law that somehow trumps considerations of fairness, due process, and statutory law that existed before this unconstitutional Adoption and SAFE FAMILIES Act was enacted by Congress.

And here is the payment for the states obliging the U.S. Congress in its unconstitutional "requirements":  money.

Money, pure and simple.

To hell with the child and the child's welfare.

To hell with splitting the child's family and ripping the child away from his parents and extended family, from his roots.

Money talks.

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Adoption Incentive Payments. The Secretary of HHS is required to make adoption incentive payments to states in which adoptions of foster children in FY 1998 exceed the average number during FY 1995-FY 1997 or, in FY 1999 and subsequent years, in which adoptions of foster children are higher than in any previous fiscal year after FY 1996.


Adoption incentive payments are $4,000 for each adoption of a foster child above the base number, plus an additional $2,000 for a total of $6,000 per special needs adoption. For these incentive payments, $20 million is authorized for each of FYs 1999-2003.

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I already wrote about the above "incentive" in a separate blog.

Here is another "incentive", shamelessly called "Reauthorization and Expansion of the Family Preservation and Support Program. 

The Family Preservation and Support Program, renamed "Promoting Safe and Stable Families," is reauthorized through FY 2001 at the following levels: $275 million in FY 1999; $295 million in FY 2000; and $305 million in FY 2001 (increases of about $20 million each year over the current baseline). 
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So, you are splitting a family for money, and call it "family preservation"?

Can the government officials and service providers who are thriving on this scheme be any more cynical?

And, there are countless more federal aid grants that require to terminate parental rights quicker, no matter what due process says, and do it mechanically, without regard of what is happening in the court case.

So, the state statute requires social services, custodian of children in foster care, to make reasonable efforts for reunification of children with their biological parents.

The federal grant money, on the other hand, provide a diametrically opposite incentive - to keep children under different pretexts in foster care for 15 months (less three months, social services may file a petition 3 months before the expiration of 15 months), and then, whatever the outcome of the child neglect petition, even if it was fabricated by social services - file a petition to terminate parental rights.

And, given the fact (which I have personal knowledge of) that foster parents in need of adoption just happen to be local government officials, the adoption pipeline combines benefits for all (but the parents and the children).

Social Services get federal grant money, and money for support of children, as well as children's own SSI payments during their stay in foster care, as well as support squeezed from parents, and the "adoption incentive" money.

Local government officials who want to adopt, get children they picked as "foster parents".

It is a child selling industry that acts under the smoke screen of "doing right by children.

They are not doing right by the children.

They are doing right by themselves - for money.