Virtual visits are not enough

In late July, a 15-year-old boy born in New Mexico — a good kid who had been placed in temporary foster care — was taken to the Paso del Norte border crossing and left there so he could “reunite” with a mother in Mexico that he had not had a meaningful relationship with for nine years. He refused to cross. He spent days in a Texas shelter. When Texas Child Protective Services called our Children, Youth and Families Department, CYFD said the case was closed and the boy was no longer their custody.

After two virtual “home visits”, he was escorted across the border and left. A caseworker who transported him told me he cried the entire way.

While I serve as the state representative for District 52 in Dona Ana County, my job has been as a social worker who has worked in the child protective system for 30 years. My agency, Mesilla Valley CASA, was involved in this case so my knowledge is firsthand.

CYFD insists the mother’s home was safe because staff conducted two video calls in which she walked around showing a bed, food and water. The agency says it has no authority to do in-person visits in Mexico. That may be legally true. It is also ethically and morally wrong.  It is lazy social work.

I saw a rush to close the case and remove him from foster care. Instead of slowing down, as I had requested, and collaborate with Mexico’s DIF — the agency that can walk into that home — and doing the hard work of proper social work, CYFD chose the path of least resistance. It looks like the agency simply wanted to wash its hands of the situation.

There are good people working at CYFD, many of them overwhelmed. But good intentions without proper supervision and accountability produce bad outcomes.

That is why I am preparing legislation with my colleagues for the upcoming session to give real teeth to New Mexico’s Office of the Child Advocate. Recommendations alone are not enough when children’s lives and futures are on the line.

The office must have the authority, the resources and the independence to investigate cases like this one thoroughly, to compel cooperation and to force the system to change before the next child is left crying at a border crossing. I suggest the office have the authority to request the Attorney General’s office to intervene prior to any action or inaction by the CYFD.

We need structural change so that “virtual home visits” and closed cases do not become the standard of care for our most vulnerable kids. A 15-year-old boy should never have to beg not to be sent away, only to be told the system is done with him. New Mexico can do better. Strengthening the Office of the Child Advocate is how we begin.