Adoption of illegal immigrant children? No!

A Democrat cousin (on my Dad’s side) has claimed that the Trump Administration is cruelly stealing the children of illegal immigrants and putting them up for adoption. Eventually, after I asked for details, he provided one link which originated with Associated Press, and then was massaged by another publication. I won't show you the link--there are so many inaccuracies I wouldn't want you to post it--some people only read the headlines and continue to pass the anti-Trump rumors.

The story was built around two children of illegal immigrants who were put in foster care--2014 and 2015. Guess who was president? Further details were from the 1980s. In both cases, the parents got their children back--the agencies that provide this service for the government make it clear to the foster parents they cannot adopt. In the one case in Michigan where a judge didn't wait for the parents to be found, the federal government was the agency that stepped in to return the child.

I'm not sure why a journalist would be so deceptive in developing the story, using stories from the Obama years, and mixing it with hysteria about Trump and then adding in the 1980s. It's manipulative. We can guess which political party she/he belongs to. American children are taken from their parents when they violate the law, but Democrats see this as different. This is a way to attack Trump.

But you have to read to the end to find out that the reunited family, back in their home country, still communicate with the foster family because they know they love their little girl too. Must have been some hell hole.

When the government separates children from parents

As you all know, our state and local governments separate children from their parents--usually an agency called child services something, and like what's happening at the border it is for their own safety and well-being. Sometimes the parent is going to prison, sometimes the home life is chaotic, sometimes the parent is mentally ill, or abusive, or homeless or has died.

If possible, the agency representing the state works to reunite the family, just as is going on at the border, sometimes they place them with relatives, as immigration services is doing, sometimes the hearings are extended or postponed, as is happening to the illegal immigrants who then just disappear.

It's a long, tedious process. Occasionally our American children are "surrendered," and an adoptive family is found, or they go to foster care until they "age out." It's always disruptive and painful for the children. If you care about the children our government is protecting at the border, toss in some care for America's children who go through this every day. . . maybe visiting dad in prison, maybe at granny's part of the time, and aunty's home part of the time. Frequent school changes, lost records, and missing friends while going from foster home to foster home.

Although the agencies are state and local, much of the funding for our U.S. children comes from your federal government which has an elaborate reporting system, and even then it sometimes fails the children (which is the sad story you read in the papers). The Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) collects case-level information from state and tribal title IV-E agencies on all children in foster care and those who have been adopted with title IV-E agency involvement. These child statistics include race, ethnicity, age, demographics, court dates, adoption and foster records, medical including immunization (which the foreign children don't have, btw), parents' problems, income, etc. quite detailed and the information collection and research has been going on for decades.

The border children have none of these records, and information is collected on the fly. The federal agencies have to be sensitive to child trafficking, and there's no quick way to find out who these children belong to. During the last administration an unknown number of children were placed with traffickers. I looked at the Ohio AFCARS page which had 18 different elements, and found it overwhelming. The section for tribal groups has 24 different elements.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/obama-administration-placed-children-with-human-traffickers-report-says/2016/01/28/39465050-c542-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html?

The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found.  (Washington Post, Jan 28, 2016)

What’s happening with Philadelphia’s foster care?

The City of Philadelphia is attacking the Catholics--THIS time—because it doesn’t recognize marriage between/among homosexuals. Therefore it must lose its grant funding for children’s foster care.  But in fact, federal, state and local government social services sub-contract to many different religious groups, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and Muslim. The problem is, you have to dance with the one who brought you. And many do.  Churches often have to compromise their beliefs, morals and values in order to get the money—to collaborate--or to even get insurance for their staff members. Remember when Obama went after the nuns who cared for the elderly and poor because they didn't provide birth control for staff? And Chick-fil-a because it didn't cover abortifacients?  I believe it was Massachusetts that planned to penalize churches that didn’t “integrate” the bathrooms because the building might be used for secular or public purposes. http://newbostonpost.com/2016/12/19/not-so-fast-massachusetts-ag-office-says-churches-not-always-exempt-from-bathroom-bill/

All Christians are commanded to do good works--some see it as part of salvation, others see it as an outcome of salvation, but Jesus made it clear--if you have no good works, you don't recognize him as savior (Matt. 25) and he won't see you as his flock. There are no goats in heaven. At one time in the U.S., virtually all community services were handled by the churches and community organizations, but gradually the government became more socialist and began copying and co-opting them (like the Peace Corps which was built on the Anabaptist volunteer model) and then doling out funding for the churches to do what Christ commanded. Gradually, churches lost their mission, and began competing for the government dollar instead of hearts.

Not accepting the grant money isn't always the solution. The government also controls the licensing and regulations for social services and all the HR regulations for staff, internships, codes, building, etc. Also, some of these agencies that the government attacks for not recognizing homosexuals as adoption candidates or fostering (it is after all supposed to be about the children) also run food panties, clothing and material outlets for the poor, settle refugees and immigrants, run job training programs, prison ministries, summer camps, disaster relief, etc., and the government can consider those "contaminated" and pull those grants, too.

So the holier than thou accusations about gay couples are really just an all out attack on Christians. Even those Christian organizations who have no problem with gay couples, just might draw the line at polygamy, incest or someone who choses another of the 32 genders.

Adoption Assistance

This is odd.  I was browsing the amounts of the 126 federal welfare and anti-poverty programs, and to my surprise saw that #23 in dollar amount was "Adoption Assistance." $2,480,000,000. $2.5 billion for adoption assistance? Right up there with the School breakfast program, $2.9 billion.  Part of the $7,256,000,000 the federal budget allows for fostering and permanency for children, #17 on the list.

“Key federal programs supporting child welfare services include Foster Care, Adoption Assistance, Guardianship Assistance, Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, Promoting Safe and Stable Families, Child Welfare Services state grants, Child Welfare Research, Training and Demonstration, CAPTA state grants, the Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention grants, Abandoned Infants Assistance, Adoption Opportunities, and Adoption Incentives.”

So I Googled, and found that this is money for adopting special needs children. Each state seems to have similar requirements—the child can have physical or mental handicaps, black children are younger than white to be included, in custody of the state, can’t be returned to biological family, adopting family can be a relative, etc.

Federal description

“Adoption Assistance – The Adoption Assistance program provides funds to states to subsidize families that adopt children with special needs who cannot be reunited with their families, thus preventing long, inappropriate stays in foster care. This is consistent with ACF's goals to improve healthy development, safety, and well-being of children and youth and to increase the safety, permanency, and well-being of children and youth. To receive adoption assistance benefits, a child must have been determined by the state to be a special needs child, e.g., older, a member of a minority or sibling group, or have a physical, mental, or emotional disability. Additionally, the child must have been: 1) unable to return home, and the state must have been unsuccessful in its efforts to find an adoptive placement without medical or financial assistance; and 2) receiving or eligible to receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), under the rules in effect on July 16, 1996, title IV-E Foster Care benefits, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.

In accordance with the Fostering Connections to Success and Improving Adoptions Act of 2008, beginning in FY 2010, revised Adoption Assistance eligibility requirements that exclude consideration of AFDC and SSI income eligibility requirements are being phased in over a nine-year period, based primarily on the age of the child in the year the adoption assistance agreement is finalized. For FY 2012, the phase-in of the exclusion of consideration of AFDC and SSI applies to otherwise eligible children for whom an adoption assistance agreement is entered into and who have reached the age of 12. The revised eligibility requirements also apply to children based on time in care and siblings of children to which the revised eligibility criteria apply. In FY 2010, federally-recognized Indian tribes, Indian tribal organizations and tribal consortia with approved title IV-E plans also became eligible for the program

Funds also are used for the administrative costs of managing the program and training staff and adoptive parents. The number of children subsidized by this program and the level of federal reimbursement has increased significantly as permanent adoptive homes are found for more children. The average monthly number of children for whom payments were made has increased more than 80 percent, from just over 228,000 in FY 2000 to an estimated 429,700 in FY 2010 and 470,400 projected in FY 2012.

The Adoption Assistance program underwent a program assessment in CY 2005. The assessment cited the program’s success in increasing the permanent placement of foster care children, effective administration at the state and federal levels, and coordination with related programs as strong attributes of the program. As a result of assessment, the program is working with states to ensure that their Adoption Assistance laws and policies comport with federal requirements.” (Administration for Children and Families
Justification of Estimates for Appropriations Committees, p. 335-336)

I wonder if families who do not release a special needs child for adoption, who do not abuse him, or abandon her, whose child is never in foster care . . . are they eligible for help?  More research needed.

Update: Another law, proposed. Don't know if it passed the Senate. H.R. 4980 requires states to track and report disruptions to finalized adoptions and guardianships, one of the biggest blind spots in research on the child welfare system. The few sample studies on the subject suggest that up to 30 percent of adoptions fail.https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/news/house-passes-adoption-incentives-package-senate-expected-to-act-soon/7653

The Left’s War on Women

Michele Bachmann fostered 23 children before she got into politics. The Left never denied it, but criticized her for talking about it! After all, it was in her past and shouldn't be brought up. It’s not like she did something useful like being a community organizer. She didn't actually "raise them" was the criticism--some were short term. They also criticized her for not winning by larger margins, for raising support for her campaigns, for being a Democrat before she was a Republican, for how many chiefs of staff she had, etc., etc. She got more scrutiny than the President, whose time in office has been riddled with scandals. Just a part of the Democrat war on women who don't slide in to power on their husband's coattails (Clinton) or lie about their heritage by calling themselves Native Americans (Warren).

By whose standard is this controversial?

My latest LAS News p. 24, Winter 2008 [University of Illinois] reports on the research of Richard Akresh about fostering children among Africans. It seems that poor African families often send a child to live with wealthier relatives who agree to feed, house and educate them in exchange for their labor. Akresh did surveys, accumulating 600 pounds of paper. Yes, he did find some abuse, but in 15 randomly selected villages 600 households were surveyed tracking 300 foster children. They found that the fostered children were better off than their biological siblings in education and health. So the system, developed through the wisdom of the people, did work. And yes, the children did work, and they weren't as well treated as the children of the host family, but I'm guessing even the better off relatives weren't wealthy.

Maybe it was the headline that irritated me: "The fostering dilemma: Controversial practice benefits some African children." It sounds to me that families were developing their own methods and giving their children the best possible opportunities. Checking the author's homepage, I see this is not his title.

This practice was common in the United States and Europe--there were informal child care arrangements, whether you call them fostering, adoption via orphan train, poor farms or child labor. There is still informal fostering arrangements in this country, particularly in black communities. The HBO movie Lackawana Blues starring S. Epatha Merkerson tells of a woman in the 50s and 60s who took in not only children, but other down and outers. A few years ago I was reading an old journal of my great great grandfather who was a farmer/ teamster/ doctor in Ohio before the Civil War. One of the entries in his log (in German and English) was about a niece taken into the family in exchange for her labor, and when she reached maturity, she would receive certain items of furniture and clothing. When I was doing research on 19th century serials, I found ads in religious magazines placed by mothers looking for families to take their children for awhile.

But considering some of the odd stories we hear today, I wonder who really has the more strange customs. I heard one this morning from an adoption attorney that just curled my toes. No servitude was involved, but the child AND the two sets of would be adoptive parents were treated callously and cruelly by the state agency which was holding them all hostage. Only families with a lot of wealth could have hired lawyers to work out the mess that social workers and state bureaucrats had created "in the best interests of the child."

Some children are more equal than others

The 1978 Federal Indian Child Welfare Act, was intended to prevent Indian children from being separated from their culture, and requires state foster care agencies to contact the child’s tribe when the child is put into state custody, allowing the tribe to intervene. Isn't it a shame that Hmong or Chinese or African or Irish or Slovakian children are born to people with no "culture" and no "tribe" [extended family] to intervene on their behalf?