It’s not uncommon for state child-welfare agencies to be taken to court. In fact, most of them have been the subject of class action lawsuits by groups like A Better Childhood, representing kids who have been moved to too many foster homes or subjected to abuse in residential facilities.
It’s much less common for agencies to be sued for failing to act on repeated warnings of potential maltreatment of a child at home. Occasionally, a family relative will sue an agency on behalf of such a child.
Finally, a reason to check your email.
Sign up for our free newsletter today.
On April 8, New Mexico Attorney General Raùl Torrez did just that, filing suit against the state’s Children, Youth, and Families Department (CYFD) for hiding its systemic failure to protect children in unsafe homes.
In a press conference astonishing for its bluntness, Torrez, a Democrat elected in 2022, said that he began his investigation into CYFD a year ago, “as a result of, frankly, one of far too many tragedies that have originated in that agency over the last several years”—that of a 16-year-old boy who committed suicide after “numerous turns inside CYFD and his placement in congregate care.” He also cited “the substantial number of New Mexico’s children who have been harmed, who are abused and neglected, who have been left in homes that are unsafe.”
The CYFD Report contains the results of the attorney general’s investigation. Torrez says his staff reviewed more than 20,000 pages of records and interviewed more than 150 witnesses. The report even contains links to law enforcement bodycam videos that can give the public a true sense of the horrible situations these children endured.
At the press conference, Torrez offered the example of Elena, a “blind, nonverbal young woman, girl, who was in a home that frankly was completely filthy, completely unsuitable.” Despite seven CYFD investigations over five years, many of which raised red flags like hazardous living conditions and missed medical appointments, the agency repeatedly returned her to her mother’s care—until she died at16 from “malnutrition and dehydration from prolonged neglect.”
What outraged Torrez even more than this avoidable tragedy—and what he says should outrage his fellow New Mexicans—is that, when authorities criminally charged Elena’s mother, CYFD personnel “testified on behalf of the mother that she was a suitable candidate for reunification with her surviving children.”
Many critics chalk up child-welfare agency failures to a lack of resources, poor training, or outdated technology, but Torrez doesn’t buy these excuses. He says the child-welfare system in his state is “defined not only by institutional failure but more importantly by moral failure.”
Torrez and his department have identified more than just incompetence or a lack of communication among different agencies or even the moral failures. He explains that “rather than prioritizing child safety . . . CYFD has a cultural orientation that prioritizes reunification—reunification at the expense of safety.” It is this culture of reunification, he says, that drives “most of the tragic outcomes” in the system.
There can be no other explanation for how a worker could observe some of these situations and assume that a child should be left with his or her biological family. Only an ideological commitment, one that overrides any modicum of common sense, could motivate some of these decisions.
The ideological commitment to reunification may explain what New Mexico’s Department of Justice describes as CYFD’s “lack of cooperation” in the investigation, as well as the agency’s overall lack of transparency. Officials appear to be trying to hide what is really happening so they can continue on this path. While the law requires the agency to keep names and personal identifiers confidential, no law prevents it from revealing vital information about these cases.
Torrez says that “confidentiality provisions have been weaponized by that agency as a form of intimidation and retaliation, not only against their own employees, but others who have information about the failures of the foster care system.” He sees the problem “most acutely . . . [among] foster parents and others who raise concerns and then suffer retribution.”
The pattern of obstruction Torrez described is a problem nationwide. Agencies often hide important information about child maltreatment from the public, even after a child has died. Those most knowledgeable about the child’s experience—foster parents—are often cowed into silence. If they speak up, agencies will remove foster kids from their home or no longer offer them placements. As New Mexico’s case goes to court, CYFD will likely stonewall and refuse to turn over the documents that Torrez has demanded. But if a judge forces the agency’s hand, we may get to see just how common this occurrence is.
Of all the shocking moments in this press conference, the real mic-drop moment occurred when Torrez was asked about “studies” showing that keeping kids with their families is “best for those children.” He responded: “I think this is not dissimilar to the challenge that we faced when I was the district attorney, and we would routinely hear about the urgent need to return criminal defendants to the streets as quickly as possible because it was going to support some academic view of public safety. . . . I’m not afforded the luxury of an academic view of public safety. I have to have a real view of public safety.”
Give this man a medal.