Judge Orders Sect Children Returned to FamiliesChildren Cannot Leave the State, Parents Must Take Parenting ClassesA Texas judge ordered hundreds of children from a polygamous religious sect who have been held in state custody for the past month to be returned to their parents beginning today, ending several days of legal wrangling between lawyers for the state and sect mothers.
The order, signed by Judge Barbara Walther whose decision to hold the children in temporary state custody was overturned by the Texas Supreme Court last week calls for more than 450 sect children to be returned to their families starting this morning.
In order to be reunited with their children, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints parents must agree that the children will stay in the state, must have their fingerprints taken and must take parenting classes.
Though the children will be allowed to live with their parents, the order does not end Texas Child Protective Services' investigation into allegations of sexual abuse on the sect's Yearning for Zion ranch. The state claims that the sect forces underage girls to marry older men and breeds young men to become sexual abusers.
Walther's order requires sect families to cooperate with the ongoing investigation, including allowing CPS to interview the children at unannounced times and give the children medical and psychiatric evaluations.
The state raided the ranch in early April and took more than 450 children into custody after receiving a call from a person who claimed to be a 16-year-old girl who was trapped on the compound and being abused by her adult husband. Police now believe the call may have been a hoax.
At a chaotic mass hearing in April, Walther ordered all the children to be held in state custody, while the state investigated allegations of abuse.
In dramatic confrontations captured on camera by sect members, police took hundreds of children from their families and bused them to temporary shelters. Many children and their mothers were housed at the San Angelo, Texas, coliseum, where parents and some aid workers complained they were packed into cramped quarters and given inadequate food and medical care, before the kids were sent to foster homes across the state.
The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday said the state overstepped its authority when it took the children into custody, saying there was not enough evidence that they were in immediate danger of abuse to justify keeping them in custody.
The court ordered Walther to reverse her decision, though it allowed her to take other steps to protect the children.
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