Attorneys arguing over the removal of 416 children from the FLDS ranch will be debating laws that are often vague, vary significantly among states and, while intended to protect children being abused, do not always work in the child's best interests.

A hearing required to establish temporary managing conservatorship of a child — similar hearings are required in Utah — is to be held today. About 160 separate child removal petitions — one in the interest of 330 children taken from the ranch — have been filed in the 51st District Court in San Angelo, Texas, near the YFZ Ranch of the Fundamentalist LDS Church.

While the fate of those children remains undecided, a national observer and advocate of child welfare reform said if the children have been removed from their parents for no statutory reasons, they need to be returned.

"Since I'm not a lawyer, I can't say if any specific laws have been violated," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "But in general, the laws are extremely broad and extremely vague."

The federal courts can, however, become very involved in the daily life of a state child protection agency. The treatment of children taken into foster care by Utah's child protective services became a federal case that lasted 14 years. Federal court oversight ended this past June in the so-called "David C." class action lawsuit.

Despite accusations that Utah was intentionally procrastinating or outright refusing to comply with the settlement in the case, both sides said significant and needed improvements — such as increasing the number of caseworkers from 282 to 612 and making sure each child receives a medical, dental and mental health check-up while in state care — were the upshot of the case filed by the National Center for Youth Law in 1993.

Wexler — who followed the David C. case closely — and others say almost none of the normal protections of due process of law that Americans expect apply in child welfare proceedings — especially when it comes to emergency removal power and actions taken before the first court hearing.

"And even beyond whatever is in the statute, every judge knows that if she rubber stamps removals, the children may be hurt but the judge is safe," he said. "Send one child home and have something go wrong and the judge's career may well be over. In this case, multiply that by 416."

Therefore it's no wonder Texas authorities had no fear about breaking these children's one remaining emotional bond — and possibly traumatizing them for life — by separating them from their mothers, he said.