Texas CPS No Neglect No Abuse and the worker admits it Texas

My 5 children have been taken by cps in Bexar county
It all seems so deceptive and corrupt
There has been no opportunity for me to defend myself my attorney doesn't even talk
It's almost as if he doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds him!! What a shame!!
Meanwhile my children are waiting to come home!! I have not been given a service plan!! Because they all agree
that it's what they call "aggravated circumstances" so they want to terminate
They say it with just ease!! It just rolls off their tongue!! These are children Not a dirty pair of underwears that you just discard!!
I never imaged such a corrupt system!!
I need advice!! Please help

In 1974 Walter Mondale initiated CAPTA (the Child Abuse Prevention and

Treatment Act), the legislation that began feeding federal funding into the

state's child welfare agencies. With remarkable foresight Mondale expressed

concerns that the legislation could lead to systemic abuse in that the state

agencies might over-process children into the system unnecessarily to keep, and

increase, the flow of federal dollars.  Shortly after CAPTA was enacted there

was a dramatic increase in the number of children in foster care, peaking at

around 500,000 during the mid-70's. George Miller, the Chairman of the federal

Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, initiated an intensive

investigation of the nation's foster care system after the effects of CAPTA

started to become apparent by the soaring numbers of children who were being

placed in foster care. An official at the U.S. Department of Health, Education,

and Welfare admitted to Miller that the government had no idea where many of the

nation's 500,000 foster children where living, what services they were

receiving, if any, or if any efforts were being made to reunite them with their

families.



To address the obvious free-for-all snatching of children that

CAPTA had stimulated, the Committee crafted new federal legislation with the

intent of creating accountability and clearer guidelines for the states child

welfare agencies. During the crafting of P.L. 96-272 Chairman Miller's concern

was that the federal government was footing the bill for warehousing children in

institutions and inappropriate settings without accountability. In 1980 the

Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act, P.L. 96-272, was enacted. The act

included provisions that "reasonable efforts" be made to prevent children from

being unnecessarily removed from their homes and placed in foster care. Although

CPS has always tried to buffalo the media and the public that they are involved

with families due to some sort of horrific child abuse or neglect, there has

never been any debate among national policy makers, researchers, and federal

agencies that the vast majority of CPS cases are due to poverty or

frivolous/social reasons and do not contain elements of real child abuse. If the

cases did actually involve acts of abuse they would be criminal, identified and

investigated by law enforcement, rather than social workers, and would be

prosecuted as such. P.L. 96-272 came into effect partly because Congress

determined that a large number of children were being unnecessarily removed from

their homes, and, once removed, they were lost in the limbo of foster care for

years, many until they just grew too old, when they were then put on the streets

at the age of 18.



The Child Welfare League of America testified before a

senate subcommittee: "In fact, there were many instances then, as now, of

children being removed unnecessarily from their families. It is important to

recognize that children are almost always traumatized by removal from their own

families." So, accountability from each states child protection agency was also

written in. To receive the federal money the states would have to submit an

annual report to the  federal government, known as an AFCARS report, that

specifically accounts for each child in state care. ACLU Children's Rights

Project attorney, Marcia Robinson Lowry, explained in her testimony to Congress:

"As a condition of federal funding, states must have a reasonable information

system to identify children in federally-funded state custody." These

requirements were implemented in 1980. Up until 1999 some states were still not

filing their federally required AFCARS report to the federal government.

According to Jeffrey Locke, former Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department

of Social Services, the excuse to the legislature was that they "couldn't figure

out how to

work their computer system."



When I called Senator Therese

Murray in 1998 to ask how many children had died in foster care in

Massachusetts, her aide replied: "We don't have those statistics." At that time

Senator Murray was the Senate Chair of the Committee on Health & Elderly

Affairs, and therefore responsible to oversee the collection and filing of

AFCARS data.



The "reasonable efforts" requirements were designed to

address these issues by requiring the states child welfare agencies to have

specific investigation and assessment policies to minimize frivolous removals,

to provide "services" to address and ameliorate conditions that were detrimental

to the child's well-being; to place children with relatives when removal from

the home was absolutely necessary; and make efforts to reunite families in a

timely fashion. Methods to audit and track compliance with federal requirements

were also built in. The states were to establish "citizen review panels"

comprised of a specifically designated representation of the population which

would include not only members of collateral professional communities involved

in child protection, but "parents, foster parents, and former foster children."

Each state was to have at least three citizen review panels. The panels would

essentially act as a standing jury of peers and would review CPS cases. Twenty

years after P.L. 96- 272 went into effect the citizen review panels have never

been established in most states.



Another means of creating accountability

was to have the federal authority, U.S. Department of Health & Human

Services, conduct compliance audits, which are known as Section 427 reviews. The

method of enforcement that Congress devised to ensure that the states followed

the federal law was to provide incentive funds to the states that documented

their compliance with the federal regulations. The states would self-certify

compliance, but could be subjected to "periodic"  427 reviews by the Dept. of

Health & Human Services. Were the states to find themselves in

non-compliance they would simply return the incentive funds. It would seem that

providing cash to agencies that are allowed to self-document compliance is a

somewhat less than intelligent system.  It would be interesting to track down

exactly how much money the states child "protective" agencies have returned to

the government because they found themselves in non-compliance. Gee, maybe this

is rocket science.



Like CAPTA, P.L. 96-272 could only have worked if the

federal government demanded compliance and meticulous accountability, and them

imposed sanctions for non-compliance. Even better criminal charges for

racketeering for intentional fraud. Mark Soler, director of the National Youth

Law Center in California explained:





"The Department of Health & Human Services has failed to promulgate

meaningful regulations to implement the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare

Act. It has applied even the minimal federal regulations that were developed in

an inconsistent and arbitrary manner, and only token implementation of the laws

protecting children.'

Even when HHS finds overwhelming evidence of lack of compliance during 427

reviews, no sanctions are imposed and they continue to keep the fed $$$ pouring

in in violation of their own regulations. Not so much as a slap on the hand or

even token admonishment. Certainly explains how CPS developed their arrogance

and contempt for any authority because there is none. Their confidence that

they are free from the feds insisting on compliance with the law is well

illustrated by the foster care numbers which increased dramatically after CAPTA

began feeding federal dollars into the states child protection agencies, then

dropped equally dramatically after the enactment of P.L.96-272, which was

supposed to create more specific federal regulation and accountability. However,

once the state agencies saw that the federal government was not enforcing

compliance, the foster care numbers soared once again.

Michael Petit, Deputy Director of the Child Welfare League of America, stated

in his testimony before Congress: "A 427 is a meaningless process for most of

the states. It represents no kind of sanctions to the states whatsoever for

non-compliance." Marcia Robinson Lowry told Congress: "States are passing HHS

audits with systems in which no reasonable person could consider that children

are being well treated. It is virtually impossible to fail a 427

audit."



The initial concept of "reasonable efforts" was the only

conclusion that any rational person could come to: rather than disrupt

children's lives, and traumatize them by seizing them from non- abusive

situations and placing them with strangers (who are often no better, and

sometimes far worse), assist families in overcoming their obstacles and problems

by providing support and services. The idea never worked, though, because it has

always been more profitable to too many to remove children rather than keep them

at home. Rather than offer support and simple, practical services to families

CPS forged contracts with vendors. Now private businesses, under the guise of

"service providers", could mushroom into existence knowing that their sugar

daddy, CPS, would provide a never-ending flow of coerced clients. The market

potential is unlimited potentially every mother, father, grandparent, and

child in the country. Rather than offering practical, meaningful services that

are germane to the families circumstances, CPS clients are ordered to engage in

"services" with CPS-contracted vendors; special interest groups who are

dependent on CPS for their income and profit by maintaining the levels of

children in foster care, and whose interests are protected by a bureaucracy

intent on securing it's own survival and protecting unlimited growth.



The

extent of which CPS is allowed to continue to operate while being so far out of

compliance with the existing state and federal laws is mind boggling. It would

be a challenge to find any other agency in our countries history that operated

in such gross and blatant violation of the law with absolutely no intervention

from the administration. Tens of millions of tax dollars are being squandered on

a system that is destroying families and causing lifelong emotional ruin to

children and those are the lucky ones who live through it.



The most

egregious area of outright criminal fraud is CPS's practice of filing their

federally required documentation of compliance in secrecy through the courts.

The federal foster care reimbursements are channeled through the Title IV-E

section of the Social Security Act. Each states child welfare agency enters into

a contract with the federal government, which is referred to as their Title IV-E

state plan. It is this contract that spells out the responsibilities that CPS

must, by law, comply with in order to receive their federal funding. To document

compliance with the fed regs CPS must file a form through the courts in each

individual case. In Massachusetts these forms are referred to as a "29-C." 42

U.S. Code, ss 672 reads:



"These requirements are not mere formalities. The Finance Committee of

Congress, in preparing its summary for final passage of the Adoption Assistance

and Child Welfare Act of 1980, P.L. 96-272, stated; ` The Committee is aware of

allegations that the judicial determination requirement (sic: that a judge makes

a determination that a child needs to be removed from the home) can become a

mere pro forma exercise in paper shuffling to obtain federal funding. While this

could occur in some instances, the Committee is unwilling to accept as a general

proposition that the judiciaries of the States would so lightly treat a

responsibility placed upon them by federal statute for the protection of

children."

1980 U.S. Code Cong. and Admin. News: "A judicial determination of those

efforts (reasonable efforts, as defined in the Act) serves to closely examine,

in the case of each individual child, whether reasonable efforts were made to

keep the family intact."  In accordance with the federal requirements the

Massachusetts legislature enacted G.L. c.119 ss 29b, which requires all judges

to certify that the Department of Social Services met the obligation grounded in

the federal statute of making reasonable efforts to protect the child short of

removing him or her from the parents, and, if the child was removed, making it

possible for the child to return home in a timely manner. Rather than "closely

examining", in Massachusetts this grave responsibility is carried out by judges

by rubber stamping stacks of 29c forms that simply contain three "yes" or "no"

check boxes. In many instances making three check marks is even too much work

for Massachusetts judges and they rubber stamp the forms while leaving them

blank never mind actually verifying that the "reasonable efforts" were made.

In return for these forms DSS receives it's federal money.

The three questions are:



1. Continuation in the home is contrary to the well being of the

child?

2. Reasonable efforts have been made prior to the placement of the child

to prevent or eliminate the need for removal of the child from his/her

home?

3. Reasonable efforts have been made to make it possible for the child to

return to his parent/guardian?

I discussed this issue a few years ago with Veronica Melendez at the

Children's Bureau (the federal authority). She told me that the federal

government was under the impression that all parties were present in the court

room at the time of the filing of the 29c's, so that the parents attorneys had

the opportunity to object, rebut, or verify the "reasonable efforts." In

reality, no one sees the federal forms except the judges and a representative of

DSS's main legal department. Attorneys ask us how we ever "got our hands on" the

29c forms, as we have never yet met an attorney who has seen the forms, let

alone have been notified of the filing hearing. We even have forms on which the

"no" boxes were checked, yet the children were still removed from their homes

and federal funds collected for them.



By seizing children illegally in

violation of the Title IV-E requirements, then filing false documents in secrecy

through the courts to obtain federal funding, CPS is defrauding the federal

government with intent. CPS should be subject to investigation and prosecution

by the U.S. Attorneys Office. They should be held liable for the restitution of

all illegally obtained funds, and prosecuted for perjury, obstruction of

justice, and the fraudulent collection of federal funds under the False

Statements and Accountability Act of 1996, P.L. 104-292 110 stat 3459, 42

U.S.C.S. 670-679a; P.L. 96-272; C.F.R. part 1356; and Title IV-E. I have

discussed this issue with the Inspector Generals Office and they felt it could

possible be prosecuted under RICO, yet they have also failed to act, possibly

because it isn't just CPS/DSS who is committing federal fraud, but also the

judges who are signing the documents.



In 1988 George Miller, the original

architect of P.L. 96-272, and Chairman of the congressionally appointed Select

Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, recognized the fraud being committed

in the name of child "protection", and stated:



"What has been demonstrated here is that you have a system that is simply

in contempt. This system has been sued and sued and orders have been issued and

they just continue on their merry way. And HHS just continues to look the other

way. You have a system that is not only out of control, it's illegal at this

point. What you are really engaged in is state sponsored child

abuse."

Hi, my name is Ali.
On June of 2010 I had both of my kids removed by CPS due to an accident with my son. He was only 1yr. old at the time and my daughter was 2. The accident with my son happened on Thursday night and Friday morning my mother called me because she wanted to come and pick them up to go with her, I knew what had happened with my son the night before, but since it had been an accident I didn't think she was going to make it seem as something worse, so I decided to let her come and get them.
To my surprise she was still mad at me for moving out of her house and taking the kids with me, she helped raised them since they were born, I was a single mom, but I got married and moved out.
She decided to take the kids without my consent, and if I was to go to her house to get them she wasn't going to give them back. So I decided to call the police.
When the officer came he ordered my mom to bring the kids back. I told him about the accident, and he said that he still had to call CPS. I told him I was OK with that because as I mention earlier, NOTHING BAD HAPPENED TO MY SON.
Of course CPS came and left temporary custody to my mom, which is what she's been wanting since I moved out. They told us we had to do some classes and stuff, and we agreed. We did a psychological evaluation and a parenting class, and after a couple of months our case worker removed the psychiatric evaluation because they saw it wasn't necessary. The case went on and they change our case worker to NICOLAS HERNANDEZ. Since the beginning I noticed he didn't like my husband, and to make matters worse, since I involve the police I got charge with injury to a child, which God first, all my charges will go away in some time. He began saying "I KNOW YOUR TYPE" referring to my husband. That he had a bad record and stuff, my husband has been in jail for traffic violations. 
This past Tuesday we had another hearing. And we decided to close the case and live the guardianship to my mom, because that way once CPS is out, I will have a little more freedom to see my children, but to another huge surprise, when they were interrogating Nicolas, he said I never went to see my kids, and that all this time I had never helped with them. I don't drive and I don't work, but I managed to go visit a least 2 time a week, but most of the time it was 3 or more time a week and I would spend my whole day with them. I don't have a huge income. But the little money that my husband managed to give me, I couldn't wait to go see them and take them something, or go buy whatever they needed. Also I was receiving 100 a month for a retroactive child support, which the child support office told me it corresponds to me, because it was what I had spend before the father came to the baby's life, and I gave the card to her so that she could have a least a candy for them if they wanted.
The CPS attorney and NICOLAS HERNANDEZ waited till my mom wasn't there to denied their accusations and changed our list of classes constantly so that for the next hearing we wouldn't be done. the went from psyc. psychological, anger management and parenting classes, to drug test and domestic violence classes, because APPARENTLY I kept calling him saying I was arguing with my husband and that he was aggressive. Don't you think if that was true he would be the last person I'll call?
Another person from my family heard him say that it was on him, and he wasn't going to let me have my kids back, because he didn't like my husband. 
Now I lost my kids and that "SOCIAL WORKER" is sitting at home enjoying probably a family he doesn't deserve, because he brakes families apart just because they "believe" but don't INVESTIGATE.