“I think about the families separated in Missouri over the years, not because of abuse or neglect, but because they could not afford to pay a bill or new clothes for their kids.”
That was House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) last month, announcing the Protecting America’s Children by Strengthening Families Act .
This idea that children are removed from their homes and placed in the foster care system because their parents can’t afford new clothes for them is a serious accusation. If true, it should outrage all Americans.
Fortunately, it’s not true.
The claim that children are separated from their parents when they are in no real danger but simply lack of material resources is repeated often. Advocates argue that alhough these cases are classified as “neglect,” they are actually just cases of poverty.
The New York State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, for instance, released a report in May that characterizes “neglect cases” as substantially distinct from those in which children could face “serious abuse” or are “suffering the risk of serious harm.”