"The irony is, if these children really were abused at the YFZ compound, then tearing them from their mothers actually will traumatize them even more than if they weren't."

Child welfare agencies tend to be vengeful, he added. "They often retaliate against parents who speak out. That may well be the real motivation for what happened here."

Monday, Texas officials separated many of the mothers from their children in temporary shelters and then ordered the women to return to their homes. The move came a day after several women in the shelters and at the FLDS ranch spoke out for the first time to the Deseret News complaining about conditions in those shelters. As in Utah, every child taken into state foster care requires legal guardian representations. In Texas, the hearing must be held within 14 days. In Utah, a "shelter hearing" must be held within 72 hours after a child is removed.

The differences between states are due primarily to the vagueness of federal law. Mostly, the federal legislation on child welfare laws provides only general guidelines, requiring only that the ongoing safety and welfare of the child needs to remain the paramount concern.

In Texas, officials have maintained that they removed all of the children because of a lifestyle there that promotes abuse and neglect.

Two years ago, the Texas Supreme Court created the Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families to improve how the judicial system treats abused and neglected children, according to a professional legal Web site that is issuing a call for lawyers to represent the children. However, commission members will have their work cut out for them with the FLDS removal cases.

While there are thousands of family lawyers in Texas, not all of them have ad litem experience. The Texas Family Code requires that lawyers have continuing legal education training before they represent children as ad litems in family court cases.

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com