Open Letter: Georgia, This Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit Is Our Chance to Make It Right

She opened the letter as her heart raced. Another bill. Another reminder that her children were gone. This one demanded over $16,000 in back “child support” — for the five children ripped from her and shuffled from placement to placement in foster care. Children she would never tuck into bed again. Children whose childhoods were stolen because their mother was experiencing poverty and homelessness. And at the bottom of the page, the words that shook her all over again: if she didn’t pay, she could go to jail.

This is Annalinda’s family’s story. And it should break every one of our hearts.

To Annalinda —

From one mother to another: I see you. I see the courage it takes to keep breathing when it feels like pieces of your heart have been torn away. You aged out of foster care yourself, without the family every young person deserves. Later, when you were experiencing homelessness and desperate, you turned to the only place you thought could help — the state. Instead of support, you lost your five children to strangers in foster care. And then, as if losing them wasn’t enough, Georgia sent you the bill. You did not fail your children. The system failed you and your children.

To Annalinda’s children —

You are good kids. None of this was your fault. You deserved safety, love, and stability. Instead, you were taken from your family during your mom’s lowest moment in life and shuffled through foster care, a system that too often failed to protect you. The system told you it was keeping you safe, but it broke its promise to you. From one mother’s heart to yours, I weep for what was stolen from you.

To the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services —

I know your mission is the same as mine: safe children, strong families. I also know many of you work tirelessly every day to protect children and keep families together. And I want to thank DFCS for doing the right thing in 2024 by ending the practice of charging child support to parents with children who were driven into foster care because of poverty. That was an important step forward.

But we cannot deny the harm that remains. Today, about 4,000 families in Georgia are still saddled with this debt, punished for their poverty and kept in poverty by it.

This lawsuit is not an attack on DFCS—it is an invitation. An invitation to lead with compassion and in collaboration with community, to finish the work already started, and to write a new story where families are strengthened, not torn apart unnecessarily.

Families like Annalinda’s continue to pay hundreds of dollars each month, even though most of her children have aged out or been adopted. She has faced license revocation and even threats of jail for falling behind. Legal Aid helped her file a petition with the Child Support Office last October, but it brought no relief. Families who have already reunified are still paying off debts tied to their own poverty. This is not the goal—and it destabilizes children unnecessarily.

When California ended this same practice, they not only stopped charging new cases but also erased roughly $400 million in past foster-care-related child support debt, ensuring families were not left behind. Georgia has the chance to do the same—to bring stability, fairness, and hope.

To our legislators —

You hold in your hands the power to change this. No policy or law should ever destroy the children and their families it was meant to protect. You cannot give Annalinda back her lost years. You cannot return her children’s stolen childhoods. But you can stop this cycle of cruelty. You can pass policies and laws that prevent foster care debt from haunting parents who were already struggling. You can place resources where they belong: in keeping children safe within their own families when poverty is driving them apart.

And to the public —

Imagine it was you. Imagine your children being taken not because of abuse, but because you lost your home and were struggling. Imagine watching them suffer in foster care, knowing they were not safe. Imagine being told you owed thousands of dollars for their separation. Imagine carrying that grief forever. Wouldn’t you want someone to stand with you? Wouldn’t you want change? Good people cannot stay silent. Not anymore.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “It is never too late to do the right thing.”

Georgia — this is that moment. Not to defend the policies and system that have caused harm, but to repair and change them. Not to punish, but to protect. Forgive this debt. Change these policies. Protect children by supporting them safely living with their families.

Read more here: New York Post Annalinda Martinez

from SARAH WINOGRAD

Thank you to our friends at Equal Justice Under Law for taking on this lawsuit and fighting alongside families like Annalinda