Texas Court Rules Sect Children Should Be Returned to Ranch

By Anastacia Mott Austin

The children taken en masse from the polygamist FLDS sect ranch Yearning for Zion must be returned to their families, said the Texas State Supreme Court this week.

The court ruled that the removal of 468 children from the ranch in early April of this year was not warranted as they were not in immediate danger of abuse. By law they must now be returned to their families at the ranch.

The case drew strong reactions on all sides after the mass April raid, in which virtually every child was taken away from his or her parents and bused to temporary shelters, along with a number of mothers from the ranch who wanted to accompany the children.

The raid was prompted by a telephone call to a family services hotline from a purported 16-year-old girl who said she was being abused by her 50-year-old husband. The call later appeared to have been a hoax by a woman with a background of making similar calls.

While some supported the removal of the children, saying that the practice of "placing," in which underage girls were in effect given to older men as wives, was abusive.

But others protested the separation of very young children (some still nursing infants) from their mothers, and placing large numbers of children who had never even seen a television into foster homes and a way of life that would appear completely foreign to them. The mothers of the children argued that a greater abuse was being visited upon their children by being separated from their families and the only life they had ever known.

The Texas State Supreme Court upheld a Third Court of Appeals’ ruling last week that the district judge in the case did not have the authority to allow the Department of Family and Protective Services to raid the ranch.

The court said that child welfare officials needed to adhere to certain guidelines, including making every attempt to reunite the children with their families, or prove that they were in immediate danger of abuse, something the court said they did not do. Wrote the court in their decision, "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."

In addition, the authorities took the children without a court order, which they say they did based on evidence found at the ranch of abuse of underage girls.

But the court wrote that there was not sufficient evidence that all of the children taken were in immediate danger.

Sect mothers who have been separated from their children were understandably elated at the news that they would soon be reunited. Though the most recent ruling involved only 124 of the children, legal experts say that the ruling will almost certainly apply to all of the children.

"The moms are clearly very happy at the news that it looks like they're going to get their kids a lot sooner than expected," said Cynthia Martinez, a legal aid representative for 38 sect mothers who had filed an appeal after the children were removed. "It's definitely an emotional day."