Law & Policy

The coronavirus pandemic has added urgency to the work of this year’s class of congressional interns with expertise in foster care – the history of their own lives. The fallout of COVID-19 has hit more than 400,000 children and youth in foster care like few other groups of Americans as yet another trauma in their lives, and none more so than young people approaching independence.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols drew a line in the sand. The U.S. government had issued a directive requiring border agents to deport unaccompanied children, arguing that they could be vectors and contributing to the spread of COVID-19.

After earlier pleas to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) went unanswered, advocates for young adults in foster care are urging support for legislation that would extend housing and financial support beyond the current age limit of 21 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Comparing the threat of coronavirus to fire tearing through a house, a federal judge on Friday ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release minors who have been held in family detention facilities for more than 20 days by July 17.

In December 2015, a federal judge ruled that Texas was violating the rights of children in long-term care of the state by subjecting them to abuse, overmedication and repeated placement moves.

With dozens of foster youth reaching their 21st birthday each week and job prospects still bleak, state legislators in New York and California advocates have introduced bills that would preserve young people’s access to essential support throughout the public health and economic crisis.

With California still officially entering a recession Monday and coronavirus infections continuing to multiply, the state Legislature released a budget that would restore more than $90 million in previously proposed cuts to child welfare services, setting up a showdown between lawmakers and Gov.

A group of Democratic senators wants to know what, if anything, the Trump administration has done to help state and local juvenile justice agencies comply with basic standards of care for youth locked up amid the coronavirus pandemic.

California legislation that would have permanently extended foster care payments and housing benefits to young adults through age 25 has now been scaled back to a short-term support plan triggered by a state of emergency such as the current coronavirus pandemic.