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Due Process Clause Of The Fourteenth Amendment (AFSA)

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The AFSA requires that states conduct criminal background checks for all perspective foster parents and deny approval to anyone who has ever been convicted of a felony, child abuse or neglect, spousal abuse, a crime against children (including child pornography), or a violent crime including rape, sexual assault, or homicide. In addition, states must deny approval to anyone with a felony conviction for physical assault, battery, or a drug-related offense, if the felony occurred within the past five years. States may opt out of the ASFA criminal record check provisions either through a letter from the state’s governor to the Secretary of HHS, or through legislation enacted by the state legislature. Prior to the enactment of AFSA, …show more content…

Decisions about the circumstances under which children may be removed from their parents and placed in state-supervised foster care raise constitutional as well as policy questions. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that no state shall “deprive life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”The Supreme Court has long established that the Due Process Clause provides “heightened protection” against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests, the oldest of which is the fundamental liberty interest of parents “in the care, custody, and control of their …show more content…

A mandate of the AFSA is that juvenile court judges terminate parental rights of biological parents who fail to reunify with their children. The law also states that parental rights should be terminated for parents whose children are in foster care for fifteen months within the last twenty-two months. According to the ASFA act once parental rights are terminated, children can longer return home to their biological parents and the parents are no longer entitled to rights meaning they no longer carry rights to the child. The juvenile court judge now will act as the parent of the children until they are placed up for adoption. ASFA gives state courts the option to allow juvenile court judges not to terminate parental rights in certain circumstances. One circumstance occurs when a child is in kinship care home placement. Juvenile courts usually do not terminate parental rights when children have long-term placement with relatives. Another situation would be when parental rights cannot be terminated is when the existing evidence that termination of parental rights are not in the best interest of the child. The determination of compelling evidence is at the discretion of the juvenile court judge. Last when a child welfare agency fails to provide services to the families for the safe return of the child to his/her biological

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