A Plain Language Explainer on the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA)

This resource was created by the Repeal ASFA Campaign.

This is a plain language explainer of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and its consequences on families.

The Adoption and Safe Families Act, “ASFA,” is a federal law passed in 1997, around the same time the Violent Crime Bill, welfare reform, immigration reform, and other laws that devastated Black and Brown communities were passed. Through ASFA the federal government gives state family policing agencies a lot of money to take away children from their parents forever. It is a law that is built on the false and racist idea that Black, Indigenous, and marginalized children are unsafe because of their parents, when in reality, our children are unsafe because of generations of racism and poverty. It also gives states significant sums of money to rush to separate children from their parents forever.