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With hearings beginning today on the CPS motions to return eight FLDS children to foster care, it would be well to remember the abuses that already have been heaped upon these children and their mothers by CPS and the Texas foster-care system.

 

The Hill Country Community Mental Health-Mental Retardation workers who assisted the mothers and children shortly after the raid on the YFZ community documented numerous examples of CPS abuse in the letters that they wrote in early May. (See “Mental Health Workers Report FLDS Women Good Mothers” for links to these letters.) 

 

 

Several of the MH workers reported that the mothers and children at Fort Concho and later at the Coliseum and the Pavilion were treated like inmates of a prison camp—at least one of the CPS workers had been a former prison supervisor. Mothers and children were crowded together and given no privacy but were watched like criminals and their every word or deed written down. To keep them from communicating with friends or other family members, cell phones were confiscated, and mothers and children were yelled at and threatened with arrest for waving at others in surrounding shelters. Snipers were posted on the buildings. Lights were left on during nap time, and the noise level was so high that most people couldn’t sleep. Even at night CPS workers spied on them constantly, shined lights in their faces, and kept them awake by sitting inches away from their cots and by talking and laughing.

   

In addition to the overcrowded conditions and the pressure of being constantly watched by strangers, the unfamiliar diet contributed to health problems. Instead of the nuts and fruits children were used to for snacks, they now had commercial fried pies. Chicken with little or no seasoning was served at almost every meal, vegetables were scarce, and everything was highly processed, not homegrown and organic. Although children were healthy when they were taken into custody, they soon became sick with chicken pox, diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses.

 

Even simple requests were denied. One mother was refused permission to use a blender to make baby food. Another was not permitted to have peppermint or chamomile tea for a child with a runny nose because herbal teas were considered medications and could only be issued with a doctor’s approval. CPS workers were irritated by one mother’s request for brooms and mops to clean the premises. One broom, one mop, and one bucket were finally provided but had to be shared with neighboring shelters.

 

 

Conditions only became worse when the children were separated from their mothers. One mother was required to board the bus even though her child was in the hospital with a 104-degree fever and the doctor had personally requested that the mother be present. A baby was left in a stroller without food or water for 24 hours and had to be hospitalized. One MH worker recalled a small boy about three years old walking along the rows of cots with a pillow saying “I need somebody to rock me; I just want to be rocked; I want to find a rocking chair.” Instead of comforting him, two CPS workers merely followed the boy around taking notes. Finally his eight-year-old brother found him and held him in his lap in a rocking chair. Another four-year-old boy was so terrified that he hid and was only found after the Coliseum was emptied the next day.

 

One FLDS mother wrote me the following account of CPS deception of the children at the time they were separated from their mothers:

 

“When we were taken from our children at the coliseum, some of the children asked when their mothers would be back, and one of the CPS told them that they’d be back in a few minutes, another said in a half hour, another in an hour, etc. After a while when the children reminded them that the time had now passed, and where were their mothers, the CPS told them that their mothers were gone and that they’d never see them again. 

 

“My daughter Paruss was told that she could go on the bus with Mother Mindy and stay with her, and when she was taken onto the bus, she looked all over the bus and couldn’t find her. She was separated from all her brothers and sisters and from Mother Mindy, and she said, ‘Mother, they just lied to me!’ There was much lying of this kind through the whole experience.”

 

Summing up her observations, an MH worker wrote, “I have worked in Domestic Violence/Sexual Abuse programming for over 20 years and have never seen women and children treated this poorly, not to mention their civil rights being disregarded in this manner. It makes us all wonder how safe anyone is who has children.”

 

 

Several FLDS mothers have given me written accounts of the experiences their children had after they were placed in foster-care facilities throughout the state. Many of them said that in spite of Judge Walther’s directive to “keep siblings together,” their children had been scattered all across the state of Texas. One mother wrote that her nine-year-old daughter was at one time housed in a building right next to her older sister. CPS ignored her pleas to be with her sister and would not even permit the girls to talk to each other although only a chain-link fence separated them. They were later moved to shelters hundreds of miles apart. “All the time they were in state custody,” she wrote, “they were never allowed to see or speak to each other or to their brothers—no sibling visits, not even a phone call.”

 

Many of the children still did not have privacy in the foster-care facilities. Another mother wrote that “at the Presbyterian Home in Waxahachie the girls found bugs (remote microphones) on the ceiling fans, behind dressers, and all throughout their rooms.” 

 

A 23-year-old mother, who was held in captivity for 40 days as a “disputed minor” wrote, “I was not allowed to have any of my religious books, not even a Book of Mormon. Any books sent to me by friends or relatives were confiscated by the department and held until I was released.” This treatment appears to have been a common practice at the shelters.

 

It would be comforting if now that the children are back with their mothers they were free from the effects of the abuse that they suffered at the hands of CPS and the Texas foster-care system. Unfortunately this is not the case. Several mothers have written describing emotional and psychological wounds that have yet to heal. 

 

Among the most common of the lingering effects is the fear and mistrust of strangers or of unfamiliar situations. One mother wrote of her children:

 

“They are scared of anyone unfamiliar, terrified of officers and people not of our faith. Even in their own home, if the doorbell rings, the younger children begin to cry and all run to hide. They are scared that either Mother or Father will be taken away or that they will. One day we were having a peaceful morning and the doorbell rang. Our youngest child began to cry, and all of the children ran into the room furthest away from the door and shut the door. I answered the door, and it was just the mailman. It took the rest of the day to get the children settled down after that incident.”

 

Mothers refer to their children’s poor sleeping habits and recurrent nightmares. Young children wake up many times in the night calling for Mother. Some of the children do not want to sleep anywhere except beside their parents or older brothers and sisters.

 

Children frequently have regressed in their development. Those who were potty trained may be wearing diapers or pull-ups. Some who were doing well in their school work now have wandering minds and have lost the ability to focus for more than a few minutes.      

 

Behavioral problems are also more common. “Before the raid…,” one mother wrote, “[my children] were sweet natured and gentle. Now I see them taking bugs and brutally pulling them apart and laughing. I notice more hurting of each other, which they didn’t do before.” Another mother observed that her children had become selfish and stubborn and were now using improper words and phrases that they had never even heard before.

 

These children have suffered abuse all right, but it has not been from experiences in their own homes. The MH workers who met the children shortly after they were removed from the ranch describe them as happy, healthy, well loved and well adjusted. For some, the healing process needed to restore them to this condition may never be complete, and additional abuse will only compound the problem. They deserve better than to be the victims of another CPS kidnapping.