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When U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack declared in 2015 that Texas foster kids were leaving state care more damaged than when they entered, it forced the state to confront decades of missteps.
After a yearlong trial for the lawsuit, which was filed in 2011, the Corpus Christi judge found Texas was violating the constitutional rights of foster children by exposing them to an “unreasonable risk of harm.” Caseworkers were carrying more than double the standard for caseload limits, children were being placed far from their home counties, and the state was not enforcing residential facilities’ compliance with licensing standards.
