Queens mother sues New York City over removal of baby without court order

Meredith Trainor’s daughter was 11 months old when caseworkers from New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services took her from Trainor's arms without a court order, according to a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York this week.

Trainor argues her daughter’s removal — which led to a five-day separation and monthslong Family Court case — was unlawful. Her lawsuit accuses the city of violating her and her daughter’s constitutional rights.

Emergency removals, which happen without a court order, are meant to be a last resort when caseworkers fear a child faces imminent danger. But city data shows these types of removals occur on a regular basis — accounting for about half of abuse and neglect removals each year. Trainor’s daughter was one of the more than 1,300 children ACS separates from their parents without a court order each year, according to the agency’s data.

Trainor’s lawsuit argues ACS is exploiting the emergency removal system. It claims the agency is pressuring caseworkers to remove children when there isn’t actually an emergency to protect its reputation.

“There’s really nothing scarier for a parent than having the government come to your door, forcibly take your kid from you, not be sure where they’re going, not be sure when you’re going to see them again,” said Max Selver, an associate attorney at Emery Celli who is representing Trainor in the civil lawsuit. “That level of trauma being inflicted on families, I think, needs to be taken incredibly seriously.”

The law department and the mayor’s office referred Gothamist to ACS, which said in a statement that the agency “is committed to keeping families together whenever that is safely possible.”

“Emergency removals are only considered in circumstances where all other options are ruled out, and teams of highly trained child protective staff determine that a child is in imminent danger and that there is not enough time to get a court order,” said ACS spokesperson Marisa Kaufman. “In more than 97% of child protection cases, children are not removed from their homes.”

Trainor, a social worker at a hospital in Westchester County, said she was working on New Year’s Eve 2023 when she got a call from her baby’s father, who was her fiancé at the time. He said their daughter was acting sluggish and might have put something in her mouth at the playground.

“My first thought was, maybe she’s having an allergic reaction to something,” Trainor said in an interview. “I didn’t fully understand. But he sounded more nervous, which then made me a little nervous.”

Trainor told the father to go to the emergency room, she said, and raced to Queens to meet them. Testing determined that Trainor’s daughter had ingested cocaine, according to her lawsuit.

Trainor remembers feeling confused. She doesn’t use drugs, she said. Her then-fiancé had told her in the past that he had a history of substance abuse, her lawsuit states, but she didn’t think he had been using in the four years they were together.

“I had a lot of questions for him,” she said. “Like, what really happened? I just didn’t really understand.”

The hospital gave Trainor’s daughter medication and released the 11-month-old to her mother later that day, according to her lawsuit.

But around midnight, Trainor said, caseworkers and police descended on her Astoria apartment. Officers arrested the baby’s father, and caseworkers ordered that he stay away from their daughter, Trainor’s lawsuit states. Expressing no concerns about the baby’s safety in Trainor’s care, the caseworkers then left, the lawsuit states.

“When they left, I would have never in a million years expected them to ever remove my daughter from me,” Trainor said.

‘I felt so helpless’

On the night of Jan. 4, Trainor said, ACS came back to the apartment and ordered her to hand over her daughter. She said a caseworker wouldn’t let her nurse or tell her where her daughter was going. Trainor was pregnant at the time, and her lawsuit also accuses an ACS caseworker of threatening the future removal of her unborn child if she didn’t comply with the agency’s directives.

“I felt so helpless,” she said. “Who am I supposed to call? I don’t know where she is. And I felt like there was nothing I could do to get her back and make sure she was safe.”

Trainor and her daughter were apart for five days before a family court judge ordered ACS to return the baby to her mother, according to court records.

Trainor’s lawyers say her case is one of at least eight that have been filed over the years accusing ACS of wrongfully taking children from their parents without a court order or probable cause that the child was in imminent danger. David Shalleck-Klein, executive director of the Family Justice Law Center, said Trainor’s case reflects a broader pattern of ACS regularly removing children without a court order.

“Children are terrified. Parents feel like their children are being kidnapped,” he said. “These are moments families will never forget.”

New York law does allow the agency to take children without first getting permission from a judge. But only if there’s a reasonable concern that the child faces an imminent danger, and there isn’t enough time to apply for an order. But ACS data shows the agency has taken kids before seeking approval from a judge in about half of its abuse and neglect removals over the last several years.

“That’s just blatantly illegal,” Shalleck-Klein said.

When deciding whether to make an emergency removal, ACS considers the immediacy of the threat to a child, the caretaker’s ability to protect the child from harm, the potential emotional impact of a removal and whether other actions could be taken to keep the child safe while allowing them to stay in their home, according to the agency. ACS also said child welfare reports often come through when family courts are closed at night or on the weekend, which means emergency removals may be the only option to protect a child’s safety.

Of the 1,397 children ACS separated from their parents in New York City last year, a judge ordered the agency to return 287 of them — or about 20% — to a parent after an initial hearing, according to city data. Often, the judge imposed some sort of supervision or put the child under the care of one parent not accused of wrongdoing. Data was not immediately available for the total number of children returned to a parent at the end of their family court case.

As a white parent, Trainor is an outlier. Family separations disproportionately affect people of color, according to a recent Bronx Defenders report.

Shalleck-Klein said removing children before getting permission from a judge takes away a layer of oversight and prevents judges from ordering ACS to remove children in the most humane way possible when they determine a removal is necessary. He said emergency removals make it more difficult for parents to be reunited with their kids, because courts tend to maintain the status quo. Delays in the family courts can cause those separations to drag on for “weeks and months and sometimes even many months,” even though hearings are supposed to be held within hours or days of a removal, Shalleck-Klein said.

New York’s Chief Judge Rowan Wilson has called for more family court funding so children can be reunited with their parents more quickly when removals happen.

“Any period of family separation feels like an eternity,” Wilson said in his State of the Judiciary speech last month. “Any delay in a hearing, trial, adjudication or appeal can disrupt foundational relationships, destabilize a life or forfeit a chance to prevent or repair damage.”

Wilson said the state has recently added more family court judges and other staff to reduce backlogs. But he’s asking the state Legislature for more money this year to support parents and kids.

‘I hope they’re proud of me’

In September 2024, the family court case against Trainor was dismissed, after about eight months of court appearances, drug screenings and parenting classes, she said. The criminal charges against the father were also ultimately dropped, her lawsuit states.

Trainor gave birth to a son while her family court case was ongoing. She is no longer with the father and now has full custody of both children, according to her lawsuit. Her daughter is learning how to swim, she said, and her son loves to go down the slide at the playground.

But Trainor said she still has nightmares about her children being taken from her. She said she was terrified when her son was born that anyone who walked in the room might remove him. Even a routine trip to the pediatrician’s office makes her nervous ACS will be called again, she said.

“It’s so much fun in these years raising children,” she said. “But I think this whole experience with ACS has just stripped a lot of that joy from me.”

One day when her kids are old enough, Trainor said, she plans to tell them what happened — and that she sued the city to try to hold ACS accountable.

“I hope they’re proud of me,” she said, her voice catching. “It’s hard. I’m by myself with two toddlers. But every day I wake up and just try to be a good mom to them.”