The Daily Signal - Biden Administration Put Christian Foster Parents on ‘Sidelines.’ Trump Can Change This

Episode Date: November 30, 2024

In April, the Biden-Harris administration finalized a rule requiring foster parents to affirm a child’s gender ideology.  “The provider must commit to establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity,” according to the rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services.  The policy, according to Herbie Newell, president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, “made people of faith into a different category of foster and adoptive parent, saying that because they didn't give in to this pro-radical LGBTQ+ agenda, that they couldn't foster any child with gender dysphoria or any child that might be having any questions about their LGBTQ status.”  “Faith-based Christian people were put on the sidelines and not able to participate in our foster care and adoption system in the same way,” according to Newell.  With over 350,000 children in the U.S. foster care system, and over 100,000 of whom are waiting to be adopted, Newell says he is hopeful the incoming Trump administration will roll back these “oppressive administrative rulings.”  During Trump’s first administration, there was a sense that “the problem is way too big for us to exclude anyone from the table,” Newell said, noting that he was invited to “West Wing of the White House three times during [Trump’s] presidency.” During the Biden administration, Newell said neither he nor any other faith-based adoption leaders that he knows of were extended such an invitation.  Newell joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the adoption and foster care policy changes he hopes to see under a second Trump administration. He also explains the ramifications of China’s decision to end international adoptions to the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the stories of real Americans to in-depth policy conversations, we are going beyond the headlines to discuss the issues and events that have and are shaping this nation. Welcome to the Daily Signal podcast weekend edition. I'm Virginia Allen, your host today. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back with today's conversation. This is Rob Lewy from The Daily Signal. In today's media landscape, it's more important than ever to have a trusted source of news and conservative commentary. That's why we're we are asking for your support. Your donation helps us continue our mission of delivering accurate, factual reporting on the issues that matter most to you. Whether it's $5 or $500, every contribution makes a difference. Visit dailysignal.com slash donate to help us keep Americans informed and fight for conservative values. The Daily Signal is your voice for the truth. Well, as we near at the end of National Adoption Month this November, I'm so excited to welcome back to the show.

Herbie Newell. Herbie serves as the president and executive director of Lifeline Children's Services. Herbie, thanks so much for being back with us today. Yeah, Virginia, thanks for having me. And thank you for the faithfulness of the Daily Signal to continue to tackle issues of the pro-life nature, especially when it comes to adoption and foster care. Absolutely. Well, you know, I think there's few organizations, especially Christian, organizations that do more in terms of child advocacy and in that vulnerable child space than lifeline children's services. You guys touch so many aspects of this fight and this work. If you would, just give us a rundown of all of the areas that you guys are involved, not only

domestically, but also internationally. Absolutely. So, you know, first and foremost, we want to care for women walking through unplanned pregnancies, helping them know the life-giving options that they have. And a lot of times I think as pro-life individuals, we miss that the life side is so full of opportunities for women to give life to their child, but also to find ways that their children can flourish, even if that's parenting, if that's through adoption, or even if that's through a temporary care situation where that child can be able to get the things that they need. We want to really help women be able to choose life. But then second, we want to explore adoption, both domestic and international, realizing that adoption can be a lovely option for a young woman that's walking through an unplanned pregnant. to place her child into a home that will love and care for that child and raise that child as their own, but also care and love for her as well. Internationally, we want to continue to advocate for kids around the world that have no other

opportunity except for possibly adoption into a home to have a for a future. Third, we really believe that we've got to intervene and equip the church to intervene in the foster care system. One of the things that we continually tell folks is the thing in common with every child in foster care is that their mom chose life. And so as pro-life people, we need to care for the over 400,000 kids in U.S. foster care, helping them get an opportunity for permanence, helping them get an opportunity to be loved and cared for. Then we also believe that this fight is global, and we need to care for orphans and vulnerable children around the world,

looking for domestic alternatives for them, equipping churches around the world to care for kids in their own backyard. And then last but certainly not least, we want to provide counseling and education to those families that have gone through the adoption process or foster care process because we ultimately want to create a perpetual difference in these kids' lives to help them be able to thrive and survive in their new homes. Yeah, critical. Give us a little bit of a snapshot of this year. How many women have you worked with? Kids have you all been a part of placing for adoption? Yeah, absolutely. So we've seen over 150 kids place for adoption in 2024. We've worked with over 3,800 women.

Some of those have been face-to-face. About 600 of those have been face-to-face. Some of those have actually been digitally, where we're matching women now with mentors around the country, getting them into one-on-one life relationships, especially those young women who are looking to parent, matching them with other moms that can help them through that parenting journey, help bring real-life skills.

So 3,800 women, 150 kids placed into adoptive families in the last year. That's incredible. That's a lot of work. You guys have been busy. It's a lot of work, but it's hard work, but it's worth it. And it also is disproving the myth that pro-life people only care about children. You know, one of the lovely things that we've been able to see this last year is, like we said, to see life-on-life mentoring with moms and women, professional women,

caring for these women going through vulnerable pregnancies, loving on them, caring for them, pointing them to truth, and allowing them to be able to thrive in service. in their pregnancy and after their pregnancy as well. Have you all noticed a bit of a shift since Review Wade was overturned and maybe an increase of women saying, hey, I'm interested in learning more about putting my child up for adoption or even just more families coming forward and saying, hey, we want to be a part of that solution as the church to say, okay, as more women are choosing life, to open our own homes to kids that

need a place, whether temporarily in foster care or permanently through adoption? I think even initially in 2022, June of 2022, when Roe was overturned, we definitely saw an uptick of women seeking our services. I think a lot of the mainstream media was talking about this war on abortion, how abortion had been ended and abortion rights were ended. Even through the last campaign cycle we've been through when the Democratic candidate continued to say that abortion was not accessible for women, we got a lot more calls because a lot of these women are. are following social media, they're hearing those talking points, and they really thought they can't have an abortion, and so they were seeking our services. I think on the other side of it, though, we've seen the pro-abortion movement become much more aggressive, much more on the attack, and then, of course, the abortion pill and the morning after pill as such has really been on the

uptick, and we're seeing much more chemical abortion. And so a lot of the calls we get today are women who have taken that pill, that abortion pill, and are having instant regret. And so trying to get them to partners like Heartbeat International and other partners that we work with to get the abortion reversal drugs, that has been a huge part of our intake is women regretting chemical abortions. Wow. That's critical. Yeah, we certainly have seen that massive uptake, especially in conversation.

Like, we're just talking about that issue of chemical abortions and the abortion pill, like I think never before in recent years. And abortion was certainly an issue that was talked a lot about in this election. But like you say, we should never have this conversation without talking about adoption and the resources that organizations like yours provide. And I think, you know, following this election, folks are asking so many questions about what does this mean for so many different policy spaces across the country, including that issue of kids and protecting life. I want to read something that Lifeline Children's Services, you all recently wrote on your ex account on your page. You say during the next four years, we need leaders who will work with us and other face-based organizations to build bridges for the sake of vulnerable children. Is Donald Trump that leader?

You know, what I have to look at, which is I think what so many of us have to look at Virginia, is what happened in the previous term. And what I can say is more than any other leader that I've seen in my 21 years in this fight, he was inviting people of faith, but he was also inviting people to the table to have conversations for better outcomes. I was invited to the White House, to the executive branch to the west wing of the White House, three times during his pregnancy by the Domestic Policy Council that was asking us to think about ways to have better outcomes for kids in foster care, to look at ways to help families that we're adopting. So if his second term is much like his first term, I do believe he's going to give access to child welfare professionals,

people in the faith community, to come around the table and to have those discussions. I think one of the hardest things at the last four years is the Biden administration, through HHS, put out authority or put out mandates and administrative rulings that actually made people of faith into a difficult. category of foster and adoptive parent, saying that because they didn't give in to this pro-radical LGBTQ plus agenda, that they couldn't foster any child with gender dysphoria or any child that might be having any questions about their LGBTQI status. Faith-based Christian people were put on the sidelines and not able to participate in our

foster care and adoption system in the same way. I am confident that the Trump administration will roll back those oppressive administrative rulings because there was in that previous administration this idea of the problem is way too big for us to exclude anyone from the table. And the understanding that people of faith, faith-based communities lead out over 70% of those that are adopting and foster find themselves identified as Christian or someone of faith. We can't box out people of faith. We need them at the table and we need them helping us find long-range, long-term solutions to our child welfare crisis in America. Yeah. During the Biden-Harris administration, did yourself or anyone at Lifeline Children's Services get one of those invites to the White House to come and talk about these

issues? We did not. And furthermore, my colleagues that I know, I don't know of anybody else in other organizations that were invited, again, of faith-based, invited to those tables. What I do know, and here's the encouraging thing, we didn't just shrink back. What we did instead is we met elsewhere and we made coalitions elsewhere to really come together. And so, you know, I will say, I don't think that the movement was advanced as much as it could be in the last four years, but I don't think we lost steam because we continued to meet, we continue to dream, we continue to work together to say, how do we really help kids in our country and around the world? Yeah. You raised that issue that so many families have faced of, you're saying, okay, I'm,

I'm a Christian, I want to be a part of the solution. I want to foster. I want to adopt. But then we've seen in certain states, like in Vermont, the Daily Signal has covered stories of multiple pastors who said, I can't in good conscience, you know, sign a form that said, I would, you know, affirm that a boy is a girl or a girl is a boy and hence have had to really sit on the sidelines. So when it comes to to that issue in particular, is there much that the Trump administration can do or does this really come down to the governors and local leaders in a state making their own policy that's state-based? I think it is both, right? And I think one of the things that we have to do is we have to make those. We have to roll back the administrative rulings at HHS that the Trump administration put in place. I'm not the Trump, but the Biden administration put in place. We have to roll those back. And that gives permission to governors in red states, for instance, to open up policy to make sure that there isn't a way that faith-based pastors, that faith-based individuals could be excluded. But I also think it no longer gives license to blue state governors, like in Vermont or Washington or Michigan, places where we've seen similar situations push back on faith-based people.

You know, there's a real attack on kids, especially in foster care. They've gone through a lot of trauma. They've been removed from their home. That's traumatic for any child to go through. And it also shakes their identity to where they're asking, who am I? And we don't need to bring a woke ideology to. them that lies and tells them that they can be somebody who they aren't. Instead, we need to do what old-fashioned counseling and trauma was, which is about dealing with your hurt face on,

dealing with your trauma face on, and looking for positive outcomes to continue to walk in it. And so really, I hope that some of this rollback and some of the underswell that we're seeing in our country against this woke ideology will restore even just common sense counseling, common sense therapy and common sense social work, which we so desperately need, not just so that Christians and people of faith can participate, but also for the sake of our children, we are pushing this ideology on them that will never bring wholeness, that will never bring healing. And it's just stuffing hurt, emotion, and trauma underneath the rug and replacing it with something that will never satisfy and something that is not true.

That phrase common sense. I have heard so many people use that in recent weeks and months, and I think there's a desire across America on so many levels to get back to that place of common sense. For Lifeline Children's Services, for the whole movement that has been celebrating November as National Adoption Month, let's talk a little bit just about some of the challenges that we're facing right now in that space of foster care and adoption. And really what has been your focus this month, as we recognize in a really targeted way, need for more foster parents and for more adoptive families. Yeah, I think one of the things that we've definitely looked at is the need, just as you say, for more families to say yes. And not yes, just to being a foster adoptive family, but yes to being present in this situation. We need more families,

more churches that are willing to wrap around families that have lost their kids to foster care so that we can see reunification in a healthy, safe way. We need to see more families that say yes to mentoring young families and young women and young men who are struggling with keeping their family together. We need to say, say yes, to let's help a woman walking through an unplanned pregnancy. Let's help her be able to see a path forward for both her and her child. Let's walk alongside of her. One of the things that is the most common denominator with all the people we work with, from

the birth mother to the family that's foster kids to foster care, to the child that's in foster care to the child that ultimately needs to be adopted around the world, there's a lack of community. There's a lack of belonging. And what adoption and foster care and getting a part of this movement does is it brings community and it breaks them out of their deepest, darkest poverty, which is relational poverty by bringing relationship to the forefront. And that relationship is what can unlock future opportunities. That relationship is what builds that community and that true identity and helps them be able to see a light for their future. And so our big thing this National Adoption Month is to go to the church,

is to go to people of faith, is to go to countries here at home and around the world and say, we need you to show up. No matter who you are or what you're called to do, we need you to show up on behalf of the vulnerable. And there's so many things that you can do. As a matter of fact, this last week I had the opportunity to speak at a church. And I said, not everyone is called to adopt or foster, but we're all called to do something.

And so that would be my call is seek your heart. What can you do? What can you provide? Maybe it's a bed for a family that's just been reunified. Maybe it's a crying, a shoulder to cry on for a young mom who's just found out she's pregnant and it was unexpected. No matter what you can do, there's something we can all do and we need everybody to step up in a strategic way. Yeah, so critical. Well, Herbie, as we look at this whole picture, we've talked some about what's happening here in the U.S. But obviously, as you mentioned, you guys work on the international front as well. For a long, long time, the United States and China, we're working pretty closely together on adoption. And a lot of, you know, a lot of Chinese children were adopted by American families. Well, just earlier this year, China closed off its doors to U.S. families adopting Chinese children. We saw Russia do a similar thing several years ago. Why?

Why did China give an explanation as to why they were closing their doors to U.S. families? Virginia, there's really been no explanation outside of maybe a couple of small, off-handed comments that China believes that they can now take care of their full child welfare system within their country. Certainly, we see just geopolitically China shutting off more of its population unto itself. And so that would fall in line. And, you know, one of the things that I believe is a huge indicator of this, though, is the lack of diplomacy by the United States. We have become a responder as opposed to being proactive in policy for child welfare around the world. And while I definitely don't think that we are called to help every nation or to take care of every child around the world, this has been a bilateral participation in intercountry adoption for so long. And it's something that so many Chinese children have found not just forever homes, but have found just opportunities by being adopted that they never would have had in China.

And one of the things that I've seen happen over the last four years even is our Department of State become less and less proactive and more and more apathetic when it comes to child welfare, especially globally. Instead of taking diplomatic trips, instead of sending diplomatic letters, we wait. we respond and we really don't have a lot of forthgoing policy. As a matter of fact, even this announcement came from the Department of State. It was the first proactive announcement the Department of State had made about China since before COVID. And as these families who are waiting, the 300 families who've been matched with children who have yet to come home were all matched before COVID. And they've been asking the Department of State for information. And all of that information was late. A lot of it was not proactive. The first thing they've said,

said proactively in the last four and a half years was that the program is shutting down. And so I would just encourage all of those that are listening to this podcast that are engaged with the Heritage Foundation and others, please write your congressman and your senators and ask them to hold our Department of State accountable to help these 300 children come home that have been matched with these families since before COVID. So those families are still waiting and hoping that maybe they're sort of grandfathered in, even though now these adoptions between the U.S. and China have formally ended. That's right. And, you know, as an organization, we have gotten non-confirmed,

but pretty strong indications that both Italy and Spain have had families that were waiting in the same group as the 300 American families that have actually already traveled to China and brought their kids back home on this same list. Since the announcement came out, since September, even as much as October and November, from Spain and Italy have traveled. We've pushed this to our Department of State, and the responses that they can neither confirm nor deny that those families have traveled. So we still think there's room for these 300 families. We need to advocate. We need to ask our lawmakers, our senators, our congressmen to please get engaged. We asked President Biden to please address this with

Xi Jinping when they were together in Brazil. So far, legacy media is showing that that issue was not raised in the meeting that President Biden had with Xi Jinping, but we hope that a forthcoming Trump administration, if Marco Rubio becomes a Secretary of State, we hope to see a much more proactive stance, especially on behalf of these 300 children. And with our diplomacy, not just for child welfare, but in general, our diplomacy around the world. Yeah. Are there any other nations that you're watching following closely either because the U.S. has really, really strong connections on that child welfare front, or there are concerns that similar to what we've seen with China, there's been sort of a slow decay of that relationship that might lead to a similar

situation. Yeah, you know, I think one of the, a couple of just the concerns that I would give you is, one, I do believe that Department of State, which is the central authority for child welfare and intercountry adoption. So without getting too far in the weeds, they are our central authority. They've become much more about policing organizations as opposed to being diplomatic and making trips to other organizations we're in participation in. So I think that always brings any part of intercountry adoption. Again, I'm not saying it's on thin ice, but it definitely puts some concerns with the future of some of these countries,

especially more of these developing nations that don't have the infrastructure. We really need our country to go forward. I think you look at countries like Haiti. Certainly you see the violence that's going on. there are a lot of kids that were waiting for adoption in Haiti, and I'm not really sure today what the path forward is if we don't do something to help really find a way for these kids to come home. Obviously, Ukraine is a country that there are a lot of waiting children,

more even since the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. We're not sure what that looks like going forward. On the good news, there are several countries that love participating in this. Hungary, for instance, is a very pro-American country that really, enjoys their participation with the United States. Columbia is another country that has historically really participated with the United States and enjoys that relationship. So there are some of those nations that will continue, I think, to flourish. But for those developing nations and maybe even some of the third world nations have participated in the past, I think it's crucial that our State

Department begin some of that diplomacy and make sure that we shore up those relationships for the good of the children, but also for the good of the families that are open to adopt. Herbie, for anyone listening who's thinking, wow, I want to learn more, I want to dive into the resources that Lifeline has to offer, or even maybe I want to consider, pray about, think about being a foster parent and adoptive parent myself. Tell us how they can learn more and utilize the resources that you guys offer. Absolutely. So they can always go to our website at lifelinechild.org. There's actually a tab for resources. And there's a lot of lot of different resources from training material to ways to get your church engaged,

to ways for you to personally get engaged with Lifeline's ministry and Lifeline's organization. We even have CEUs for foster parents who may be in the foster care journey. We have advocacy places that people can advocate for kids in their states. And as well, you can always contact us on social media. All of our handles are Lifeline Child. So Lifelinechild.org or Lifeline Child on any of the major social media. Awesome. Well, Herbie, thank you. Really, as always, appreciate your time. It is just a joy to hear about the work that you guys are doing at Lifeline Children's Services. Virginia, thank you. And we thank the Daily Signal and the Heritage Foundation for being such a trusted partner.

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