REAL “Child Separations”

By Dr. Ed DeVries

I live to expose the hypocrisy of the left. As a result, many are angry at me all the time. In the last two months, however, I have genuinely invoked the full-force of their collective wrath. How? By simply using my editorials and radio show to expose the fact that there is absolutely no difference between the border separations resulting from the President’s “zero tolerance” policy that separates children from their parents at the Mexican border, and the “Child Protection” and “Foster Care” systems in the United States.

I just can’t figure out why the same people who go berserk over 2,000 incidents -- where the children of illegals are separated from their parents at the border – don’t utter a peep when states separate almost 300,000 children from their AMERICAN parents each year.

An endless parade of actors and other phonies constantly hector us on TV that it’s immoral to separate a child from its mother: Yet, they are oblivious to the fact that the laws in many states permit the theft of nearly a third of a million children from their parents each year. Many of these laws were enacted by the same liberal politicians who now tell us that it is “immoral” to separate kids from their parents.

While the separations at the border are unfortunate, the criminal activity of their alien parents have left the Trump administration with no other recourse. And the sad reality is that these illegal alien parents are essentially using their own children (or imposters) as “accessories” in the commission of their crimes.

Also, while the procedures and facilities used by the Administration to effect separation at the border are published and scrutinized by the media, the same leftists go to great lengths to shield the practices of state “Child Protective” agencies from similar public exposure, knowing that those agencies target AMERICAN children and families for much less humane treatment.

On June 1^st, 2018, Texas Lt. Gov, Dan Patrick, went so far as to admit the same when he told the HOUSTON CHRONICLE: "And in terms of family issues, we do that with child protective services and social services in our country, where we find a child in a dangerous situation— so the left is trying to make a bigger issue out of this because they want an open border."

In light of all this controversy surrounding child separations at the border -- from both left and the right -- why aren’t state “Child Welfare” and “Protection” systems getting the scrutiny and exposure that they long deserve?

While there are several family separations occurring at the border of Lt. Gov. Patrick’s state of Texas and neighboring Mexico, a greater number of separations occur at the border of California and Mexico. This is because most would-be aliens believe that they will fare better in liberal California than in mistakenly “conservative” Texas.

Cathy Senderling-McDonald -- deputy executive director of the California County Welfare Directors Association -- says that in her state, “There are required court hearings, with court-appointed lawyers, that begin no later than two court days after a child is removed from their parents. A petition must be filed at that time or the child is returned to the parents. Abuse and neglect on the part of the parents must be substantiated in court for the child to be in our system.”

Of course, this would lead us to assume that parents are receiving due process, including court hearings where the rules of evidence are followed, and, where the parents are allowed to have legal counsel.  But such is NOT the case in many so-called “child welfare” cases, where there is absolutely NO due process to protect children or their parents.

Often, the “child welfare” case workers have already taken the children without a lawful court hearing. This is easily accomplished, since they have the discretion to declare any situation an “emergency,” after which they can immediately remove the children from parental custody on the spot. If the parents resist, the social worker simply calls the police who will amuse themselves by having yet another opportunity to play the role of “mafia enforcer.”  

More often than not, lawfully prescribed court hearings do not come before the fact, they come after it. And to help clarify the legal mumbo jumbo, two “court days” usually means at least four or five calendar days and sometimes longer.

While that may seem like a short stay in State custody or “foster care,” it is long enough to emotionally scar a child for life. For very small children it is quite traumatizing to see force used against their parents and then be taken away by strangers. In itself, that scenario is usually a far greater instance of abuse than whatever neglect any parent had been accused of.

Separating the child from its parents before the hearing severely disadvantages the parents and benefits the government. Then, to complicate matters, parents are often discouraged from hiring an attorney, or told that doing so will jeopardize their chances of seeing their children. (Did I fail to mention that most government agents are very convincing and expert liars?)

Moreover, if the family is permitted to retain an attorney, it is almost always a public defender or “Legal Aid” attorney (i.e., some guy who barely graduated from a Night School Correspondence College of Law,) who literally meets his clients for five minutes before the hearing and then makes the identical pleading for every “client,” regardless of circumstances.

Those who assume that allegations of “abuse” must be substantiated are simply not familiar with the process. Child protection hearings are always held in a civil court -- not criminal -- so as to avoid the requirement for strict legal standards and traditional rules of evidence.

Traditional legal standards such as “beyond a reasonable doubt” or “clear and convincing” evidence do not apply in these “civil” proceedings. Agency caseworkers are allowed to get away with nebulous standards such as “a preponderance of the evidence,” or more realistically, the “because I say so” standard of justice.   

Finally, presiding over the whole shenanigan is a “judge” who normally hears civil cases. If he must run for reelection, he knows that if harm should befall a child he reunites with its parents, the bad publicity could cost him reelection. So there is an incentive to simply rubber-stamp the agency’s findings and keep the child in foster care. This is true even when the agency fails to make a case and even when he knows the children will be harmed by the system. This is the wisest course for the judge, and many judges have admitted to it.

In John 3:19-20 our Lord said that, “this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”

This is why in most states these “child protection” hearings are more secret than a FISA Court proceeding, with severe criminal penalties for anyone -- especially a parent or attorney -- who would dare attempt to expose the process. To my knowledge, the only judges ever impeached in the State of Texas were targeted for daring to question the State’s “Child Protective Services.”

Let me put this another way, if you or your family found yourself in legal jeopardy, would you say: “Just give me a public defender who has no real time for my case and try me in a kangaroo court that can convict me on uncorroborated hearsay in a secret trial”? Or would you insist on your right to “due process”?  

So while Cathy McDonald and her ilk argue that the foster care system is not a place“where the children are pulled away from their parents and placed into warehouses with thin blankets, chain link fences and only each other for comfort,” the reality is that the “Child Protection” gestapos are traumatizing over 100 times as many children as those recently separated from their parents by Border Patrol agents.

And unlike the Border Patrol agents, who have had a crisis thrust upon them, the so-called child “protectors” actively seek out hundreds of thousands of AMERICAN kids, making sure to increase the number every year so as to justify their agencies existence and increase its funding.

And rather than placing them in temporary shelters, they rip their young victims away from their parents and place them in institutions where abuse is well documented, a fact that leads us to ask how much more abuse goes undocumented?

If that’s not bad enough, they literally drug the kids with dangerous psychiatric medication. And the “Child Protection” agencies will keep their kids in a custody far worse than prison and far longer than the Border Patrol keeps kids in it’s custody. Worse, the Border patrol often turns the kids in their custody over to the real child abusers, i.e. the “Foster Care” bureaucracy.

Even if one accepts that the intent of “child protection” and “foster care” is to serve the best interests of the children, that does not in any way change the result. And that horrible result is perhaps the ONLY thing that the two situations -- separating children at the border and separating them for “child protection” -- have in common. A connection that the media, the politicians, and the “foster care” apologists are  desperate to ignore.

Whether the child is ripped from his mother or father’s arms by a border patrol agent or a policeman at the request of a “Child Protective Services” worker, the tears are the same and the trauma is the same.

My prayer is that what happens on the border will be a wake-up call for patriotic Americans. Would to God, the next time President Trump is called a monster for tearing children from their parents at the border he simply use his bully pulpit to tell us all who the real monsters are and why. President Trump by the way has the power to commute the sentances of millions of Americas kids imprisoned within the “system.” The liberals on the other hand are hoping that we all just change the channel.