Research on the Story and Prevalence of Child Removal into Foster Care
The story shared— involving parental drug and alcohol addiction, infidelity leading to family separation, physical and emotional abuse, exposure to inappropriate adult behaviors, child abandonment, runaway at age 11, homelessness at 13, involvement in gangs for survival, sexual assault, and lifelong mental health impacts like unresolved trauma and estrangement from siblings— aligns with many documented experiences of children from dysfunctional or “broken” homes in the United States. Such narratives are unfortunately common, often stemming from intergenerational cycles of poverty, substance abuse, neglect, and domestic instability. Research indicates that these factors frequently result in children being removed from their homes and placed into foster care or, in cases where the system fails to intervene early, leading to homelessness or street involvement.
The story shared— involving parental drug and alcohol addiction, infidelity leading to family separation, physical and emotional abuse, exposure to inappropriate adult behaviors, child abandonment, runaway at age 11, homelessness at 13, involvement in gangs for survival, sexual assault, and lifelong mental health impacts like unresolved trauma and estrangement from siblings— aligns with many documented experiences of children from dysfunctional or “broken” homes in the United States. Such narratives are unfortunately common, often stemming from intergenerational cycles of poverty, substance abuse, neglect, and domestic instability. Research indicates that these factors frequently result in children being removed from their homes and placed into foster care or, in cases where the system fails to intervene early, leading to homelessness or street involvement.
According to national data, neglect is the leading cause of child removal, accounting for about 63% of foster care placements in recent years, while parental drug abuse contributes to around 32-36% of cases. Overall, substance abuse (including drugs and alcohol) is a factor in up to 39% of removals. Between 2000 and 2023, approximately 5.9 million children entered foster care in total, with over 1.6 million entries explicitly because of parental drug abuse; the proportion rose from 15% in 2000 to a peak of 36-39% around 2017-2021, before slightly declining to 32% by 2023. In 2023, 175,283 children entered foster care, with neglect at 63% and parental substance abuse at 32% as primary reasons. Children under age 5 are particularly vulnerable, comprising the fastest-growing group in foster care, often due to parental addiction.
Stories like this are not outliers; they reflect systemic patterns. For instance, nearly 60% of youth identified as homeless have histories of foster care, abuse, or domestic violence. Media and personal accounts often highlight abuse in broken homes leading to foster placement or runaway scenarios, with some children experiencing further trauma in foster care itself. The child welfare system handles millions of reports annually, and nationally, poverty-related neglect (not always intentional abuse) drives most removals—up to 80% in some areas. Long-term effects mirror the described lifelong pain: increased risks of mental health issues, substance abuse, incarceration, and unstable relationships for those from such backgrounds.
Stories like this are not outliers; they reflect systemic patterns. For instance, nearly 60% of youth identified as homeless have histories of foster care, abuse, or domestic violence. Media and personal accounts often highlight abuse in broken homes leading to foster placement or runaway scenarios, with some children experiencing further trauma in foster care itself. The child welfare system handles millions of reports annually, and nationally, poverty-related neglect (not always intentional abuse) drives most removals—up to 80% in some areas. Long-term effects mirror the described lifelong pain: increased risks of mental health issues, substance abuse, incarceration, and unstable relationships for those from such backgrounds.
The Problem: Child Removal from Broken Homes into Foster Systems
The core issue is that broken homes—characterized by substance abuse, neglect, physical/sexual abuse, and family dissolution—frequently lead to child removal as a protective measure, but the foster care system itself is often inadequate or harmful. In 2023, 175,283 children entered foster care due to maltreatment. While removal aims to prevent further harm, it can exacerbate trauma through instability, sibling separation, and potential abuse in foster placements. Critics describe the U.S. foster system as “broken,” with too many children entering unnecessarily (e.g., due to poverty mislabeled as neglect) and insufficient support for biological families. This results in poor outcomes: foster youth are more likely to face homelessness, teen pregnancy, juvenile justice involvement, and long-term emotional scars compared to peers who remain in supported homes. Additionally, the system disproportionately affects low-income and minority families, perpetuating cycles of separation without addressing root causes like addiction or economic hardship.
The core issue is that broken homes—characterized by substance abuse, neglect, physical/sexual abuse, and family dissolution—frequently lead to child removal as a protective measure, but the foster care system itself is often inadequate or harmful. In 2023, 175,283 children entered foster care due to maltreatment. While removal aims to prevent further harm, it can exacerbate trauma through instability, sibling separation, and potential abuse in foster placements. Critics describe the U.S. foster system as “broken,” with too many children entering unnecessarily (e.g., due to poverty mislabeled as neglect) and insufficient support for biological families. This results in poor outcomes: foster youth are more likely to face homelessness, teen pregnancy, juvenile justice involvement, and long-term emotional scars compared to peers who remain in supported homes. Additionally, the system disproportionately affects low-income and minority families, perpetuating cycles of separation without addressing root causes like addiction or economic hardship.
Solutions: Preventing Removal and Alternatives to Foster Care
The solution lies not in polite reforms or half-measures, but in a brutal reckoning with a corrupt system that devours children for profit while masquerading as humanitarian aid. Billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into a shadowy cartel—led by groups like Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) and its ten resettlement agencies—that treats vulnerable kids as inventory in a multibillion-dollar pipeline of exploitation, trafficking, and disappearance. This isn’t compassion; it’s a lobbying machine that profits from the lifelong damage of broken homes, foster failures, and refugee chaos, leaving 2,300 children missing every single day in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands unaccounted for in a web of neglect, abuse, and outright vanishing. Automatic removals and foster placements aren’t protection—they’re the cartel’s revenue stream, perpetuating cycles of trauma where kids “age out” into homelessness, addiction, incarceration, or worse, all while executives pocket six-figure salaries and boards stacked with Wall Street titans, former officials, and political insiders hedge bets with bipartisan donations to keep the spigot open.
True change demands fierce, unrelenting involvement from every citizen: no more passive awareness, no more “wait and see” while children are warehoused in converted Walmarts, handed to unvetted sponsors who turn out to be traffickers, or shuffled through foster homes rife with abuse. We must expose this cartel—RCUSA, IRC, HIAS, LIRS, USCCB, CWS, and their ilk—as the predators they are, laundering federal contracts into lobbying slush funds that block oversight and expand the crisis. Support initiatives like Project Milk Carton, which maps the governance, finances, donations, and lobbying of this machine to bring sunlight to the shadows and demand accountability for every lost child. Without mass awareness and action—petitions to state AGs for audits, FOIAs for contract transparency, community watch groups tracking placements—nothing changes. The cartel thrives on silence; shatter it.
Key approaches, infused with this urgency, include:
The solution lies not in polite reforms or half-measures, but in a brutal reckoning with a corrupt system that devours children for profit while masquerading as humanitarian aid. Billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into a shadowy cartel—led by groups like Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) and its ten resettlement agencies—that treats vulnerable kids as inventory in a multibillion-dollar pipeline of exploitation, trafficking, and disappearance. This isn’t compassion; it’s a lobbying machine that profits from the lifelong damage of broken homes, foster failures, and refugee chaos, leaving 2,300 children missing every single day in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands unaccounted for in a web of neglect, abuse, and outright vanishing. Automatic removals and foster placements aren’t protection—they’re the cartel’s revenue stream, perpetuating cycles of trauma where kids “age out” into homelessness, addiction, incarceration, or worse, all while executives pocket six-figure salaries and boards stacked with Wall Street titans, former officials, and political insiders hedge bets with bipartisan donations to keep the spigot open.
True change demands fierce, unrelenting involvement from every citizen: no more passive awareness, no more “wait and see” while children are warehoused in converted Walmarts, handed to unvetted sponsors who turn out to be traffickers, or shuffled through foster homes rife with abuse. We must expose this cartel—RCUSA, IRC, HIAS, LIRS, USCCB, CWS, and their ilk—as the predators they are, laundering federal contracts into lobbying slush funds that block oversight and expand the crisis. Support initiatives like Project Milk Carton, which maps the governance, finances, donations, and lobbying of this machine to bring sunlight to the shadows and demand accountability for every lost child. Without mass awareness and action—petitions to state AGs for audits, FOIAs for contract transparency, community watch groups tracking placements—nothing changes. The cartel thrives on silence; shatter it.
Key approaches, infused with this urgency, include:
• Family Preservation Programs: These must be weaponized against the cartel’s incentives, providing intensive, short-term services (e.g., counseling, parenting education, substance abuse treatment, and economic support) to keep children safely at home and starve the removal pipeline. Programs like Intensive Family Preservation Services have reduced out-of-home placements by addressing root issues like addiction and neglect, but they need aggressive funding shifts away from foster contracts. The federal Family First Prevention Services Act (2018) funds community-based prevention, but it’s toothless without public pressure to redirect billions from cartel shelters to in-home mental health, substance abuse treatment, and parenting support. States like Indiana show it works when implemented post-abuse, but demand nationwide audits to ensure funds don’t loop back to profiteers.
• Separating Poverty from Neglect and Economic Empowerment: Harsh truth: Many removals are poverty traps mislabeled as neglect, feeding the cartel’s foster and UAC warehouses. Solutions demand flexible funds for rent, food, job training, and financial literacy to empower families and slash unnecessary entries—because every kid removed is a payday for agencies like Southwest Key or BCFS. Expose and defund the overlap where poverty becomes profit.
• Substance Abuse Interventions Without Automatic Removal: Parents battling addiction are prime targets for the cartel’s child-grab; rethink policies with family drug courts and in-home support to keep families intact, preventing foster entry and boosting recovery. Studies prove it works, but lobbyists block it to protect contracts.
• Kinship Care as an Alternative: Ditch stranger placements for relatives in kinship foster care, which delivers better outcomes—higher employment, education, lower re-abuse, and stability—while being cheaper and culturally sensitive. It’s a direct hit to the cartel’s institutional profits.
• Broader System Reforms: Train foster parents rigorously, promote community adoption over cartel shelters, and evaluate prevention with independent oversight—no more foxes guarding henhouses. Large-scale evidence shows supported families outperform foster care, reducing lifelong scars, but it requires dismantling RCUSA’s influence through exposed donations and lawsuits.
Effectiveness hinges on ruthless implementation: States with flexible funding and early interventions see drops in removals and better well-being, but only if we force transparency via tools like USAspending.gov and FEC records. Ultimately, shift from reactive exploitation to proactive family strengthening—but that demands your involvement now. Support Project Milk Carton to amplify awareness and dismantle this machine. We Won’t Stop TILL this Problem IS ERADICATED: The lobbying machine that profits from children while calling itself humanitarian.
Make sure you read and understand this article 👇👇👇 more to come…..
Follow this account, @P_MilkCarton
Visit ProjectMilkCarton.web.app
• Separating Poverty from Neglect and Economic Empowerment: Harsh truth: Many removals are poverty traps mislabeled as neglect, feeding the cartel’s foster and UAC warehouses. Solutions demand flexible funds for rent, food, job training, and financial literacy to empower families and slash unnecessary entries—because every kid removed is a payday for agencies like Southwest Key or BCFS. Expose and defund the overlap where poverty becomes profit.
• Substance Abuse Interventions Without Automatic Removal: Parents battling addiction are prime targets for the cartel’s child-grab; rethink policies with family drug courts and in-home support to keep families intact, preventing foster entry and boosting recovery. Studies prove it works, but lobbyists block it to protect contracts.
• Kinship Care as an Alternative: Ditch stranger placements for relatives in kinship foster care, which delivers better outcomes—higher employment, education, lower re-abuse, and stability—while being cheaper and culturally sensitive. It’s a direct hit to the cartel’s institutional profits.
• Broader System Reforms: Train foster parents rigorously, promote community adoption over cartel shelters, and evaluate prevention with independent oversight—no more foxes guarding henhouses. Large-scale evidence shows supported families outperform foster care, reducing lifelong scars, but it requires dismantling RCUSA’s influence through exposed donations and lawsuits.
Effectiveness hinges on ruthless implementation: States with flexible funding and early interventions see drops in removals and better well-being, but only if we force transparency via tools like USAspending.gov and FEC records. Ultimately, shift from reactive exploitation to proactive family strengthening—but that demands your involvement now. Support Project Milk Carton to amplify awareness and dismantle this machine. We Won’t Stop TILL this Problem IS ERADICATED: The lobbying machine that profits from children while calling itself humanitarian.
Make sure you read and understand this article 👇👇👇 more to come…..
Follow this account, @P_MilkCarton
Visit ProjectMilkCarton.web.app
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
