SOS for kids

Texas’ most vulnerable children need urgent help from unreasonable risk of harm.

For decades, the Texas child welfare system has endangered children. After an exhaustive trial, U.S. District Court Judge Janis Graham Jack of Corpus Christi held Texas’ long-term custody system unconstitutional, describing it as one “where rape, abuse, psychotropic medication and instability are the norm.”

Let that sink in. The norm for the 10,700 or so children in the state’s longterm care program is rape and abuse, psychotropic medication and instability. These are the same children who the state removed from abusive and inept parents or otherwise dangerous situations and took under its wing ostensibly to keep them safe.

Given the risk of lasting harm to the children in its custody, Texas lawmakers should follow the law as set forth in Jack’s order. The ruling contains well-thought-out directives that could be used as a roadmap for progress. Instead, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed Jack’s decision to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and is seeking to have it overturned.

An appeal wasn’t the state’s sole reaction. Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature did take a number of steps during the last legislative session to improve child safety, like approving raises for child protection workers to plug the workforce shortage and slow the high rates of turnover. But last week the judge ruled in a stinging rebuke that the state’s actions have fallen short of fixing the underlying problems.

“Over two years later, the system remains broken and DFPS (the Department of Family and Protective Services) has demonstrated an unwillingness to take tangible steps to fix the broken system,” Jack wrote.

Rather than focusing on the solution, Paxton appealed the judge’s final order, issuing a rebuke of his own. “When unelected judges improperly assume control of state institutions, Texas officials cannot make the policy they’ve been entrusted to make,” he said in a statement (“Judge Demands Foster Care Fixes,” Page A1, Jan. 20).

Paxton’s statement ignores the system of checks and balances set up by the U.S. Constitution. When the state breaks its own rules, it’s the job of the court system to point the way to reform.

Texas officials did not do enough to keep the children that they’ve been entrusted with safe. Following decades of neglect, it became the responsibility of the courts to make sure the state protects our most vulnerable. Were it not for the judge’s order, the state might still be turning its back on children in long-term custody who experience rape as the norm.

In addition to an appeal, Paxton requested and was granted a temporary suspension of Jack’s order, meaning the state does not have to immediately start making any of the ordered changes.

Paxton may have gotten his wish, but that doesn’t make Texas children any more safe. These kids need help now.