K.W. v. City of New York

This case was brought by K.W., father of K.A., to hold the City of New York responsible for removing K.A. from K.W.’s care and placing him into foster care without naming K.W. in the proceedings or accusing K.W. of being an unfit parent. K.A. remained in foster care for three years. The district court ruled that the three-year separation from a fit father did not violate the right to family integrity and applied an alarmingly low standard to justify the warrantless removal of K.A. from his father’s care.

Juvenile Law Center joined Children’s Rights, the Children’s Defense Fund, the National Association of Counsel for Children, and National Center in filing an amicus brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in support of K.W. The brief argued that the fundamental right to family integrity, the oldest fundamental liberty interest recognized by the courts, extends to children. The brief also argued that in order to protect children’s right to family integrity, it is essential to protect children’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from warrantless “emergency” removals by requiring agencies to take a narrowly tailored approach in their interventions and applying a rigorous and strict standard of review when evaluating those interventions – including purportedly emergency removals. Finally, the brief emphasized that children suffer long-term emotional and psychological harm that negatively impact them in adulthood when they are unnecessarily separated from their parents, especially when that separation lasts longer than 2 years.

K.W.'s family won in the Second Circuit on both Fourth Amendment and due process grounds. 

 As described by the brief's main author, Children's Rights, the Second Circuit judges held that "'[t]he plaintiffs have stated claims for unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment and for a violation of the right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment on behalf of the infant, K.A.' The Court also reaffirmed that children have a right to family integrity, and stated that when a state removes a child from a parents' care, the removal 'triggers' children's 'Fourth Amendment Claim' related to his seizure and children's 'Fourteenth Amendment Claim' that the state violated family integrity without providing 'procedural due process.'"