Every year, thousands of New York City families are subjected to invasive home searches as part of child abuse and neglect investigations. While less than 7 percent of these investigations lead the agency to file claims of abuse or neglect, a new lawsuit alleges that the city's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) workers often make misleading—or outright false—threats to coerce parents to allow ACS to conduct warrantless searches of their homes.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, ACS employs a widespread policy of coercing families under investigation to allow case workers into their homes. ACS workers allegedly often tell families that they "must" or "have to" let them search their homes, insist that they do not need a warrant for the search, and even threaten to take noncompliant parents' children away.
