By the Families vs. DHR Editorial Board
Sunday Spotlight Series
Americans are bracing for the next move in a global war. Headlines scream of conflict overseas. Leaders posture. Missiles launch. Civilians brace for fallout.
But while the world watches one war unfold, another remains hidden in plain sight.
It doesn’t involve foreign soil. It doesn’t make the evening news. There are no bombs or soldiers. But there are targets. There are casualties. And it’s happening right now in cities like Dothan, Montgomery, Birmingham, and beyond.
This is not a foreign war. This is domestic warfare. And the enemy isn’t coming. It’s already here.
They Don’t Need Missiles. They Have Mandates.
The agencies carrying it out do not wear uniforms. They don’t need helicopters or Humvees. What they do need is unchecked power, vague policies, and an army of caseworkers armed with pens, clipboards, and immunity.
What they call “child protection” has become, in too many cases, an organized campaign of family destruction disguised as care.
Good families are not just being disrupted. They’re being torn apart, twist by twist, turn by turn, lie by lie. By paperwork. By the quiet signature that leads to sudden removal. By safety plans written in back rooms. By emergency removals justified by hearsay instead of harm.
The Tactics of Control
This war is psychological. It doesn’t aim to kill. It aims to conquer.
Fear is its greatest weapon.
Parents are separated from their children with no warning, no hearing, and often no crime. The threat is implied: sign this paper or we’ll escalate. Cooperate or you’ll lose them forever.
Some sign, hoping to comply. Others resist and find themselves criminalized overnight.
The moment a case opens, your identity changes. You’re no longer “Mom.” You’re no longer “Dad.” You’re a subject of investigation. An unfit guardian. A problem to manage.
And in many cases, this begins without a judge. Without a trial. Without a single piece of verified evidence.
Collateral Damage: The Children
This is not just a war on parents. It is a war on childhood.
Children are taken from loving homes and placed in chaotic, unfamiliar systems. They are given trash bags for their belongings. They sleep on office floors. They age out without answers. Some die in care. Far too many.
And even when families fight back and win, the scars remain.
The child never forgets the day they were pulled away. The parent never forgets the silence of an empty room. And no one forgets who signed the papers.
This Is Not Just Bureaucracy. It’s a War Strategy.
We often use metaphors when describing CPS. But at some point, we must call it what it is.
It is not a broken system. It is a designed system. Designed to seize control. Designed to silence resistance. Designed to isolate families from one another so the state can define what’s “best.”
They don’t need sirens to announce their arrival. They use social workers. They come with clipboards, not cuffs. They smile as they remove your children because they’ve been trained to believe it’s help.
But help doesn’t look like this.
From Dothan to Montgomery to Mobile. The War Is Waging.
In towns across Alabama, sirens can be heard daily. But behind the sirens is another warning.
A family is under siege. A child is being taken. A caseworker is rewriting the story of a parent’s life. And a system, once trusted, is now operating as judge, jury, and destroyer.
This is state-sanctioned terror.
It doesn’t look like warfare from the outside. But inside the homes affected, it is just as destructive.
A Call for Resistance
This isn’t about politics. It’s about protection. Not of the state. But of the family.
We cannot keep pretending this is rare. We cannot keep calling it a mistake. This is an epidemic. This is policy turned weapon. And it will not stop until we stop it.
What You Can Do
They expect you not to know your rights. They expect fear to guide your hand. They expect silence. But you do not have to give it to them.
Refuse to sign without a warrant. If they truly believe your child is in immediate danger, make them go to a judge. Force them to swear under oath. Do not sign away your family out of pressure, out of hope, or out of fear. If they can take your child without showing proof, that is not protection. It is power unchecked.
Ask questions. Demand answers. Every visit, every accusation, every decision must be accounted for. You are not irrational for wanting to understand what’s happening to your own child. You are not wrong for expecting truth.
Protect your voice. If they tell you to be quiet, speak louder. If they try to back you into a corner, stand firmer. The moment you fall silent is the moment they take control. Your voice is not a threat. It is a defense.
Find your people. You are not the only one. Connect with others who are fighting the same battle. Join movements. Share your experience. Demand laws that protect children and families instead of tearing them apart. You were never meant to fight this alone.
Do not accept their version of you. You are not guilty just because they wrote it in a report. You are not unfit because a stranger believed a story. And you are not worthless because the system refused to see your worth. You are still a parent. You are still standing. You are still enough.
This Sunday. We Name the War.
Fathers are rounded up. Mothers are labeled unfit. Children are placed far from everything they’ve ever known because a worker showed up, not in search of truth, but to craft a narrative. In their black and white composition notebooks, they write stories meant to look like real work. Stories built on bias, not facts.
We are not just highlighting abuse. We are exposing the war strategy. We are defending the innocent. We are reclaiming the narrative.
To every worker operating this machine, to every agent of the state who weaponizes it against innocent families, you are not just doing your job. You are committing an act of treason. You are carrying out, in real time, an act of domestic terrorism. And history will remember.