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Seventeen years after Nancy Schaefer’s warning, families are still fighting to be heard. The system hasn’t changed. It has simply gotten better at hiding.

In 2007, State Senator Nancy Schaefer of Georgia released a scathing report titled The Corrupt Business of Child Protective Services. She said what most were too afraid to whisper: that child welfare agencies across the United States were profiting from the destruction of families. Her words were bold, controversial, and for many, prophetic.

Nearly two decades later, the warnings she gave us still ring true. Families across the country are still reporting the same abuse of power: children taken without due process, parents punished without trial, and agencies making life-altering decisions based on anonymous calls and unverified reports.

These agencies continue to operate under the protection of immunity while receiving federal bonuses for every child adopted out of foster care. Judges rarely push back. Caseworkers face no discipline. And the public, for the most part, remains unaware that this is even happening.

CPS has become a protected empire built on taking children and separating families.

Just as Nancy Schaefer warned, families are reaching out in droves with stories. Not just words but documents, recordings, case notes, timelines, and undeniable proof. Their children are being ripped from their arms based on exaggerated reports and unchecked accusations. Workers are operating with immunity, free to move however they want, often in ways that are not only unprofessional but dangerously reckless. The system is not held accountable. And the consequences fall hardest on children and the families that love them.

Children are confused. Mothers are crying and angry. Fathers are fighting silently in their minds, questioning how their families are being shattered. Grandparents are left in the dark, watching their lifelong dreams of grandparenting vanish. All of this is being carried out by real humans who have no cause, no soul, and no purpose other than the destruction they are enabling. This is not protection. This is trauma disguised as policy.

We are calling on legislators, senators, and every public official who believes in the sanctity of family to act. We do not need more silence. We need better laws, immediate accountability, and systemic reform before one more child is taken without cause and one more family is torn apart without justice.