adoption – Turtle Talk

Important Article on the Rise of Foster Parent Interventions in The New Yorker/ProPublica

October 17, 2023Kate Fort

I’ve been posting and talking about this issue for a while now, and am very happy to see it highlighted in this article. The Colorado Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel has been collecting incredibly important data (headed up by a proud MSU alum!) on what happens when foster parents intervene. I strongly encourage anyone in the position to do so to begin collecting this same data.

https://www.propublica.org/article/foster-care-intervention-adoption-colorado

Intervenors can file motions, enter evidence and call and cross-examine witnesses to argue that a child would be better off staying with them permanently, even if the birth parents — or other family members, such as grandparents — have fulfilled all their legal obligations to provide the child with a safe home. When Carter’s foster parents intervened in the hope of keeping him, they turned to the firm of Tim Eirich, a Denver adoption attorney who charges as much as $400 an hour and has almost single-handedly systematized intervention in Colorado.

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The Trump and Biden administrations have both pressed states to keep a larger percentage of kids with birth parents or kin. Intervention, a state-level counter-trend, is supported by foster parents’ rights groups and advocates at national conservative organizations.

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Since 2018, South Carolina’s courts and lawmakers have affirmed the right of any state resident to file to adopt any foster child, as well as the right of foster parents to intervene. In 2020, Kentucky amended its law to let foster parents intervene as legal parties in involuntary terminations of birth parents’ rights. And this year Florida passed a law saying that if birth parents move to have their child adopted, including by a biological family member, long-term foster parents can intervene to contest that outcome. Kathryn Fort, the director of the Indian Law Clinic at Michigan State University, told me that her practice has faced three sets of intervenors this year, all of them non-Native couples seeking to adopt a Native child.

ICWA Decision out of Missouri on Tribal Intervenor (Relator) Standing and Writ of Prohibition

October 7, 2021Kate Fort

opinion_sd37148 Download

From the facts in this opinion, it’s clear this is a pretty contested post termination of parental rights/foster care adoption case from the southern district of Missouri (Poplar Bluff, Springfield). What is not in the opinion but is available on the Westlaw decision page are the attorneys involved in the case. I’m sure it’s some local southern Missouri attorneys:

Attorneys for Relator – Heidi Doerhoff Vollet of Jefferson City, MO; James R. Layton of St. Louis, MO

Attorney for Respondent Judge – Scott S. Sifferman Acting Pro Se

Attorneys for Minor – William Petrus of Mt. Vernon, MO (GAL); Matthew D. McGill, David W. Casazza, Robert Batista, Todd Shaw of Washington, D.C.

Attorneys for Respondents Foster Parents – Toni M. Fields of Cassville, MO; Paul Clement, Erin Murphy of Washington, D.C.; Kevin Neylan of New York, NY

Huh.

Even so! In this case, the Court of Appeals found the Choctaw Nation had standing to to bring the writ of prohibition against the judge and the Court of Appeals entered the writ (Respondent is the trial judge)(also, this is why formal legal intervention is so important for tribes whenever possible)(also why it’s good to find local family law attorneys who can talk about things like “writs of prohibition” with expertise):

In his brief, Respondent argues that the Choctaw Nation does not have standing to seek this writ of prohibition. On two occasions, Respondent granted the Choctaw Nation the right to intervene in this protective custody proceeding under 25 U.S.C. § 1911(c), and also granted the Choctaw Nation the right to intervene in Foster Parents’ adoption proceeding. We see no error in these rulings. The Choctaw Nation has standing to seek
this writ of prohibition.

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Respondent did not have the express or implied authority to interfere in the Children’s Division’s administrative review of a nonfinal administrative recommendation for adoption, and then substitute Respondent’s judgment for that of the Children’s Division and compel the Children’s Division to reach or adhere to a particular recommendation.

Domicile Case out of Utah Supreme Court [ICWA]

July 30, 2020July 30, 2020Kate Fort

Here.

A decision in a long running adoption case out of Utah.

Vice: How Parents are Pressured to Give up their Children for Adoption

June 16, 2020June 16, 2020Kate Fort

I did not talk to this reporter, but it feels like a word for word account of my classroom lecture on this issue:

Here

The explicit coercion of that era gave way to domestic adoption industry we have today—which is regulated by an inconsistent patchwork of state laws, unlike the federal regulations applied to international and foster care adoptions. And gradually, demand grew: By the mid-70s, increased access to birth control and legalized abortion and lessening stigma of single parenthood plummeted the supply of healthy white babies. In 2014, approximately 18,000 infants were placed for domestic adoption. In 2017, the CEO of the National Council for Adoption estimated that around one million families are trying to adopt at any given time in the U.S.

I have yet to find a replacement for the type of research the Donaldson Institute did–sadly it wound down operations a couple of years ago.

Latest on Paul Petersen Adoption Scam from Maricopa Co.

December 1, 2019Kate Fort

Here

Adoption Attorney Charged in Illegal Adoption Scheme Involving Marshall Island Babies

October 14, 2019October 14, 2019Kate Fort

Here and here.

A public official in Arizona has been arrested in connection with charges that he ran a multimillion-dollar scheme in which he smuggled pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to profit from their newborn babies. Authorities say Maricopa County Assessor Paul Petersen’s fraudulent adoption enterprise left a trail of forged documents and violated U.S. and international laws.

Petersen operates an adoption law firm. For years, he has connected American families seeking to adopt with women from the Marshall Islands — but state and federal prosecutors say Petersen falsified documents and lied about the mothers’ residency so he could enrich himself.

Federal indictment here.

Utah Charging Documents

We posted previous coverage of the Marshallese adoption schemes from the Hololulu Civil Beat. Here is coverage of Peterson in 2017

Wisconsin Speakers Taskforce on Adoption Looking at Speeding up Adoptions

July 11, 2019Kate Fort

Press releases: Speakers Taskforce on Adoption Membership 052919
Speakers Taskforce on Adoption 051419

Any tribal member and/or tribe can give testimony on this issue here:

Thursday, July 25, 2019
Unity School District Performing Arts Center
1908 150th St.
Balsam Lake, WI 54810
Start time: 12:00 noon
Please feel free to attend either session. If you would like time to speak please contact: Meagan Matthews at: 608-266-8551 or Meagan.Matthews@legis.wisconsin.gov

We would note that one outcome of the opioid epidemic is that some groups are pushing to terminate parental rights faster, particularly for children under the age of 3. A recent law passed in Arizona attempts to do just that, and was pushed by Generation Justice, a group founded by the recent past CEO of the Goldwater Institute.

Doe v. Jesson Case (MN Federal ICWA Case) Dismissed as Moot

August 8, 2017Kate Fort

Here is the opinion.

After two years, the Minnesota federal district court dismissed the voluntary adoption case challenging the provisions of the Minnesota Indian Family Preservation Act (MIFPA) allowing for notice and intervention of a child’s tribe in the proceedings. While the court states that the case presented Constitutional questions, the proceedings were moot and did not meet the standard for capable of repetition but evading review to keep the case live. There’s a nice discussion of that standard for practitioners who have been wondering how that might work in a child welfare case.

Plaintiffs have 30 days to file a notice of appeal if they so choose.

This is the last of the summer 2015 batch of federal ICWA challenges filed. All of them were ultimately dismissed. Carter v. Washburn is currently on appeal to the 9th Circuit.