On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Rep. John Allen offered an amendment to SB1003 that would have officially allowed authorities to strip parents of their due process rights, according to Rep. Kelly Townsend. After being challenged by Rep. Jesus Rubacalva and Rep. Reginald Bolding, Allen gave up his effort.
Allen’s amendment to SB1003 would have clarified what the Department of Child Safety was required to do before of removing children from their homes. Allen had been planning to offer the amendment for some time, but because of its controversial nature, he had to slip the bill on an agenda in the hopes that he could catch his fellow legislators off-guard.
Allen faced tough questions from Bolding, who noted that caseworkers may determine within 180 minutes whether or not to take your child from your home. Once removed the parents have high hurdles to jump in order to get their children back.
It wasn’t until Rubacalva asked Allen if he was aware how many warrants or court orders the Department had obtained before taking children this year, that Allen abruptly ended the debate because the answer would have been too damaging.
“The short answer is that DCS requested zero warrants last year,” Rubacalva told the ADI in an email in response to our inquiry. “The long answer is that DCS does not actually obtain warrants to remove children from homes. There are instances in which they obtain a pick-up order. This is when the court becomes involved, prior to DCS picking up the child. DCS relies on an exception granted in the 4th amendment for exigent circumstances. These occur when the child is or will be in present danger, so court involvement would pose a barrier to the child’s safety. The majority of DCS removals are with exigent circumstances.”
It is the nature of those exigent circumstances that are really an assault on parents’ due process rights says Townsend.
According to documents, exigent circumstances can include dirty dishes in the sink, or items strewn across a family’s floor. In other words, just about anything qualifies as an exigent circumstance when a caseworker decides that your child should be taken away from you.
Given that between 30 and 40 children are removed from their homes in Arizona on a daily basis, and Arizona has a higher “pick-up” rate than any other state in the Union, exigent circumstances must be relied upon too often for most people’s taste.
When Rubacalva was asked by the ADI, if the current practices impact some populations more than others, he responded, “I have not done the research on data that shows what families are impacted the most, but one can assume that families with limited resources are impacted more heavily because they lack the support or structure in caring for their children.”
As Bolding pointed out; they also lack the resources to fight to get their children back.
The Department of Child Safety has been in turmoil since Governor Doug Ducey named Greg McKay as director. McKay, who lacks any real management experience, was put in charge by Ducey in 2015. As the ADI reported previously, the move to make the former head of the DCS Office of Child Welfare Investigations, head of the entire Department shocked many in the child welfare community.
A bill, SB1359, sponsored by Sen. Katie Hobbs, hoped to ensure that DCS would someday be administered by someone with an understanding of preventative services to families and their well-being, as opposed to someone who views the job from a law enforcement perspective. However, that bill died quickly.
A similar bill was sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Rios last year. According to the News Times, the governor scoffed at it. Ducey’s spokesman Daniel Scarpinato told the News Times that bill was nothing more than “a political stunt.”
1. Permits a juvenile court to issue an order authorizing DCS to take temporary custody of a child upon filing of a sworn statement or testimony by a peace officer, child welfare investigator or a child safety worker.
a. Currently, a child must be taken into temporary custody pursuant to a juvenile court order submitted, under oath, by an interested person, peace officer or child safety worker if reasonable grounds exist to believe that temporary custody is clearly necessary to protect the child (A.R.S. § 8-821).
2. Requires the court to determine that it is contrary to the child’s welfare to remain in the home before authorizing temporary custody.
3. Requires DCS, by November 1, 2017, to:
a. Hold stakeholder meetings to discuss a process for obtaining a court order before removing a child in nonexigent circumstances;
b. Submit a report to JLBC and any joint DCS Oversight Committee regarding increased costs and staffing requirements for the implementation of the modified removal process; and
c. Include draft language in the report, if required.
4. Makes a technical change.
One Republican legislator said with a smile after the floor debate, “Allen buckled under dems’ constitutional questions.”