OPEN LETTER to Michelle Obama from PARENTS of BLACK AMERICAN CHILDREN

Dear Flotus,

Recently, we read where you demanded your daughter Malia’s photo be deleted from a media outlet to protect her right to privacy. Earlier this year, your social media post went viral in your quest to #BringBackOurGirls. Just last week you took a stand on illegal child immigrants but so far we have not seen you stand up for America’s Black children who aren’t related to you or part of a political campaign.

In New York City alone, Black children make up 90% of the children who were murdered since January 2014 while in the care of the city’s child welfare agency, ACS. New York keeps kids in foster care for 54 months on average – that’s twice the national average. Over 85% of NYC’s foster kids are Black.

Despite federal laws like the Educational Stability Act and Fostering Success in Education Act which requires CPS agencies to file educational plans for every, single child in care within 60 calendar days, NYC’s ACS only complies about 10% of the time. ACS is also supposed to hold twice a year educational plan review meetings for each child but flat out refuse to do so. In fact, during her May 29, 2014 budget hearing testimony, ACS Commissioner Gladys Carrion admitted the “agency is aware of the federal requirements” before acknowledging ACS only complies “on a case-by-case” basis. The commissioner’s admission if guilt should be grounds to suspend their Title IV and Title IV-B funding since the state is up for review in 2015.

Foster kids have a 1/10 chance of going to college. Their educational success rates are dismal. Taxpayers give NYC’s ACS $3 billion to care for these children, more than $300,000 per child per year. ACS admits in its own reports to the City Council that 60% of all the calls to the hotline are false and unfounded yet children are still removed and parents are still subjected to traumatic experiences because foster care is New York’s cash cow. More than 80% of the ACS budget is spent to maintain its bread and butter: Foster Care. Just 11% is spent to strengthen families with child care vouchers, housing support, etc.

Eight out of 10 cases in family court are for poverty related neglect allegations, not child abuse. ACS runs foster care and abuse ads like car commercials to scare taxpayers and to protect its cash cow, not to help families.

While we realize your children are important to you and we share your believe that they are a national treasure, no child is better than another. No matter how unpopular, you must personally do more to ensure that children of Falsely Accused Moms.com are not wrongfully placed in foster care.

We hope you will follow @FalseAccuseMoms on Twitter and support our quest to end family court corruption for all American children but especially the Black children who are most commonly targeted. We hope you will help us #PassJoseesLaw.

Sincerely,
Falsely Accused Moms.com Membership and Supporters