ACLU, Thank you for taking on Michigan's dangerous child welfare industry
Posted by: "Doug Dante" dougdante1@yahoo.com dougdante1
Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:17 pm (PDT)
Michigan ACLU,
Thank you for taking on Michigan's dangerous human child welfare industry by
suing on behalf of a father and mother who lost their child for three days
because he mistakenly gave his son a bottle of hard lemonade. ("ACLU sues state
over dad's custody loss after hard lemonade mix-up", David Ashenfelter, Detroit
News, Mar 24, 2011, http://bit.ly/gfkGMt ).
I agree completely with Michigan ACLU legal director Michael Steinberg, who
said, “Michigan law currently allows the government to take a child without
having to prove that it’s necessary to prevent immediate danger ... The law is
unconstitutional, out of step with the rest of the country and must be fixed to
prevent harm to other families.”
Michigan's laws as implemented can be harmful to both children and parents, and
discriminatory against fathers. In addition to the problems you are addressing,
there is evidence of multiple problems at the Friend of the Court (Michigan's
child custody and parenting time Title IV-D "agency"), including, but not
limited to:
* Many local FOC apparently refuse to give parents access to forms required by
law (MCL 552.505).
* Evidence of possible widespread fraud in the calculation of child support at
the Friend of the Court include its own 2008 Michigan Child Support Formula
Training which said that that they were stopping the practice of automatic
imputation, looks like it violated both state law and Michigan appellate
precedents (see scribd dot com slash DougDante)
* A child support specialist may have admitted a pattern of fraud when she was
reported to have testified in court in a manner that led a witness to write:
"She also went on to say a great deal more that proves that FOC is putting
their (sic) thumb on the scale." (Feb 21, 2008)
* Wayne County FOC and others appeared to ignore duties to enforce parenting
time complaints (MCL 552.511), based on the 2008 FOC Statistical Supplement
(the FOC is paid by taxpayers explicitly for access and visitation programs
under 42 USC § 669b)
* FOC workers who know parents can't pay sometimes request courts send them to
de facto debtor's prisons in what sometimes looks like an attempt to extort
money from their loved ones, potentially violating the plain language of
Michigan Constitution Section 25 (see scribd ibid)
* FOC workers and others may be misusing federal tax dollars intended to
collect child support for children to collect arrears for the FOC itself and
payments for persons associated with the court (scribd ibid)
* FOC workers may illicitly coordinate with LGALs, parenting time coordinators,
and other specialists by using "preferred lists" of professionals who are
knowingly biased, who charge several times market rates for services, etc to
hamper parent's attempts to maintain relationships with their children via
court orders (scribd ibid)
* FOC workers may intentionally or unintentionally confuse parents through
obscure and incorrect local procedures. Muskegon FOC workers have stuck
parents with a confusing and incorrect phone system, reported wzzm13.com
(1/13/2011)
* FOC workers sometimes appear to assist and abet the fraud of parents who
receive child support but hide their own income from the court, harming
children whose best interests are served by accurate calculations of support
(see scribd ibid)
* The 2008 Michigan Child Support Formula Manual includes a "difference of
cubes" parenting time offset calculation, which increases support transfer
payments, but often provides one parent as much as 10x the other per each night
the child spends in their home. This does not appear to me to be calculated
based on the needs of the children as required by federal law. (see scribd
ibid)
* FOC workers have and continue to make access to child support information
difficult, and this may enabled embezzlement of child support funds,
particularly payments often made in cash, such as the ongoing criminal case in
Muskegon county.
* Some FOC workers appear to violate Michigan's Child Custody Act (MCL 722.23),
ignore the best interests of the child as defined by law, instead base the
living arrangements children exclusively on their own and governmental
financial interests. e.g. if one parent receives welfare benefits or owes the
state money, the other is never allowed to share custody, so the state can
collect its money from the child.
* FOC workers may also act in a sexist manner, and refuse to provide men,
fathers, and even boys access to services for child custody determination, child
support enforcement, parenting time enforcement, or assistance for victims of
domestic violence (MCL 400.1501). These may be a federal felonies under both
42 U.S.C. § 3789d(c)(1) and 18 USC § 241
* FOC workers may knowingly engage in behavior that harms children and
parents, because they are pressured to maximize Title IV-D funding at all costs
(see scribd ibid and Google "Carol Rhodes" to watch the video of the former FOC
child support enforcement specialist explain what happened in the FOC office
where she worked)
Thank you for your service to the people of Michigan, particularly our
vulnerable children and their loving parents.
Sincerely,
Doug Dante
http://www.scribd.com/DougDante
Darrick Scott-Farnsworth
Executive Director www.AChildsRight.net Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Cell 269 209-7144 or Nextel DC ID 130*112*19287
True Conservative: Pro-Life, Liberty and Property
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