The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches, yet child welfare investigators routinely conduct them. In New York City, the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) conducts over 99.5% of home searches without a court order. Rather than follow the legal process to obtain an order, ACS instead uses highly coercive tactics to illegally enter and search families’ homes. ACS caseworkers lie to parents, threaten to involve the police when law enforcement is clearly not needed, and even directly threaten to take parents’ children away from their care—all to pressure parents to give ACS access to families’ homes and strip-search their children. ACS uses these coercive tactics even when no emergency exists. Only a small percentage of ACS investigations result in determinations that the children need protection—less than 7% of investigations lead ACS to bring charges against parents.  

These illegal searches inflict tremendous harm on children, parents, and family relationships. Investigations typically last sixty days and involve at least one – and frequently more than four – invasive searches of the family’s home and often include multiple degrading strip searches o children. The searches are also unnecessary—children are just as safe when ACS conducts fewer home searches and follows lawful procedures when it searches homes.