Homeward Bound
May 30th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The FLDS children are going home. Late this afternoon, a district judge in San Angelo officially ordered the state’s Child Protective Services to return more than 400 kids to their polygamist parents beginning on Monday.
The order follows yesterday’s ruling by the Texas Supreme Court that CPS overstepped its legal authority in seizing the children from the Mormon fundamentalist sect’s West Texas ranch in early April. Some of our past coverage is here.
Under the terms of today’s order — according to attorneys working on the case — FLDS mothers can live with their kids, on or off the sect’s Yearning for Zion Ranch, but CPS will keep close watch. The agency will have access to the children on any day between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. And FLDS families can’t leave the state and must cooperate with CPS’ ongoing investigations into abuse at the ranch.
We’re also told that CPS may file to re-claim custody of a handful of teenage girls who were allegedly sexually abused. CPS has said that girls as young as 14 were married to, and sexually abused by, older men at the ranch.
The FLDS mothers have won back their kids for now. But this sorry saga is a long way from finished.
