Washington Displaced Reunification Act

Supporting Research and Data

This page provides the sourced evidence behind each section of the proposed bill.

 

Erasure by Design: When the State Shreds the Truth

In October 2006,  The Spokesman Review exposed a devastating reality: the state’s Children’s Administration had systematically destroyed thousands of files belonging to foster children in Spokane. "More kids' files destroyed" details how 4,000 folders representing the private lives and legal histories of over 1,700 children were sent to the shredder.

For those of us searching for the truth of our origins, this wasn't just "record maintenance." It was the final act of displacement. 

 

Why These Records Matter

These files were often the only place where a child’s true history existed. They contained: Medical and School Records: The foundational facts of a person's physical and developmental history.

Investigative Reports: The truth behind removals and placements.

Personal Mementos: Photos, letters from biological parents, and evidence of a life lived before the state stepped in.

 

The Disconnect in the System

The 2006 report highlighted a terrifying lack of oversight. Regional workers were not trained to identify important documents, and there was no requirement to contact former foster children before their histories were destroyed. As the article states, "Once it's gone, it's gone."

 

The Directive from the Top

It is critical to understand that this was not a localized error; it was a calculated, top-down mandate. While the Spokesman-Review investigation focused on the 1,700 children in Spokane whose lives were reduced to 4,000 shredded folders, these numbers only reflect a single district. The article makes it clear that this was an internal agency directive issued from the Children’s Administration headquarters in Olympia. This wasn't a state law or a public mandate; it was a command from the agency’s own leadership at the top, forcing regional offices to prioritize "storage space" over human history. By directing districts to systematically purge these files, the agency ensured that the true scope of the destruction across the entire state of Washington remains hidden, effectively erasing the tracks of the very system entrusted with these children's care.

 

Our Mission: Restoration and Accountability

This history of destruction is exactly why the Washington Displaced Reunification Act is a necessity. We cannot allow the state to "clean out its closets" by erasing the identities of the people it was entrusted to protect. 

We are advocating for a survivor-centered approach that ensures records are preserved, accessible, and protected from the shredder. If the state took a child’s life into its hands, it has a lifelong obligation to protect that child’s right to their own story.

 

Link to Full Article: More kids' files destroyed - The Spokesman-Review, Oct 26, 2006

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2006/oct/26/more-kids-files-destroyed/

 

 

The Baby Scoop Era: Scale and Scope

The period commonly known as the Baby Scoop Era ran from approximately 1940 through the early 1970s. During this time, it is estimated that up to 4 million mothers in the United States surrendered newborn babies to adoption, with 2 million of those occurring during the 1960s alone.

Baby scoop era 

https://babyscoopera.com/home/what-was-the-baby-scoop-era/

 

Annual numbers for non-relative adoptions increased from an estimated 33,800 in 1951 to a peak of 89,200 in 1970.

These numbers could be even larger, as unmarried pregnant women may have checked into hospitals under fictitious names, and early in this period recordkeeping was lax and not generally required by agencies, hospitals, or other entities.

 

Baby Scoop News

https://babyscoopera.com/news/

 

This was not a system of voluntary surrender. In most cases, adoption was presented to mothers as the only acceptable option, and little or no effort was made to help them keep and raise their children.

Rybicka law office

http://www.rybickalawoffice.com/blog/2017/5/11/baby-scoop-era-generations-of-forgotten-mothers/

 

More than 80 percent of unwed mothers in maternity homes acted in essence as suppliers for adoptive parents.

BOTH SIDES OF THEN: Finding Love After Abandonment

https://byjennifergriffith.com/what-happened-then/

 

Black Market and Gray Market Networks

Beyond formal adoption channels, a parallel criminal infrastructure operated throughout this same period. Black market adoptions, defined as transactions in which money rather than the child's welfare was the paramount factor, are estimated to have comprised at least one third of all independent, non-agency adoptions.

These networks operated with near impunity. Congressional hearings documented connections between black market baby brokers and organized crime figures, with children placed into homes with no legal adoption proceedings ever completed, leaving those children with no rights of inheritance and no legal standing.

 

The Sealing of Records

States first began sealing adoption records in 1917, with the majority doing so after 1945. After adoption, the child was issued an amended birth certificate listing the adoptive parents as if they had given birth to the child. The original birth certificate was legally sealed from everyone, including the adopted child, even after they reached legal adulthood.

[Nursing Clio]

https://nursingclio.org/2017/10/10/buried-secrets-living-children-secrecy-shame-and-sealed-adoption-records/

 

Washington State currently operates under a compromised framework. While an adult adoptee's original birth record is available by request to the state Department of Health, its release is subject to birth parent disclosure vetoes and denials.

Court records identifying information is sealed and only available by court order upon good cause shown.

Adoptee Rights Law Center

https://adopteerightslaw.com/washington/

 

This system assumes a formal adoption record exists. For children displaced through black market networks, unregistered facilities, or informal removal, no such record exists at all, leaving those individuals with no pathway to their identity under any current Washington law.

 

Indigenous Child Removal

The displacement of Native children operated on a parallel and equally devastating track. From 1960 through 1980, roughly 25 to 35 percent of Indigenous American children were removed from their families and placed in foster care, adoptive homes, or institutions, most of which were outside their original communities and family systems.

University of Chicago Crown School

https://crownschool.uchicago.edu/student-life/advocates-forum/bolstering-indian-child-welfare-act/

 

Of those removed, 85 percent were placed outside their families, even when relatives or tribal members were available to care for them.

NICWA

https://www.nicwa.org/what-is-icwa/

 

From 1958 to 1967, the Child Welfare League of America contracted with the Bureau of Indian Affairs through the Indian Adoption Project for the purpose of placing Native American children with white families. This effort to assimilate children into mainstream culture through the destruction of their families resulted in several generations of Indian children losing their identities.

 

Understanding The Indian Child Welfare Act

https://www.icwlc.org/education-hub/understanding-the-icwa/

 

 

Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and even into the early 1980s, child welfare agencies went to tribal reservations and removed as many Native children as possible.

Skookum Kids

https://www.skookumkids.org/blog/2025/4/8/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-indian-child-welfare-act/

 Washington State, home to 29 federally recognized tribes, was directly affected by these practices.

 

 

Section 1

Legislative Findings

The State of Washington acknowledges that between 1940 and the 1980s, a documented pattern of child displacement occurred through black market and gray market networks, unregistered facilities, coerced surrenders, and fraudulent placements affecting children of all backgrounds including Indigenous children. Washington State retains jurisdictional interest in any child who was a resident of Washington at the time of removal, regardless of where that child was taken. Current records access laws create an insurmountable barrier for displaced persons who do not possess their original birth name or original date of birth, rendering all other legal remedies effectively inaccessible.

During the period known as the Baby Scoop Era, estimated figures indicate that hundreds of thousands of children nationally were displaced through coordinated networks operating across state lines. In Missouri alone, approximately 30,000 children passed through a single facility, The Willows, between 1905 and 1969, with an estimated 100,000 children adopted out of Kansas City during that same period. When The Willows closed in 1969 its records were destroyed rather than preserved, a deliberate erasure that permanently severed thousands of people from their origins. Washington State connected individuals were among those swept into these national networks.

An unknown but significant number of Washington-connected displaced children remain unaccounted for, with conservative documented figures suggesting hundreds from even narrow time windows, and those are only the cases we know of.

The burden of investigation has fallen entirely on survivors, which is an unjust inversion of state responsibility. This gap extends to present-day displacement through human trafficking and other means.

 

 

SECTION 2

 Establishment of the Task Force

There is hereby established the Washington Displaced Reunification Task Force, operating as an independent state body. The Task Force shall not be housed under or subject to the direction of any existing state agency. It shall operate with its own governance structure, its own protected budget allocation, and full decision-making authority over its records, intake processes, investigative functions, and reunification activities.

The Task Force shall have the following core authorities granted at the time of establishment by this bill: the power to compel the transfer of records from any entity public or private, the authority to accept and process intake from any displaced individual regardless of available identifying information, the authority to use DNA analysis and forensic genealogy as investigative tools, the authority to refer criminal findings to the Washington State Attorney General, and the authority to publish aggregate findings and data with individual privacy protections in place.

The Task Force shall be governed by a board drawn from its membership. No state agency, legislative body, or executive office shall have authority to direct, delay, or override the Task Force's investigative or reunification functions. Oversight shall be limited to financial auditing to ensure proper use of state appropriated funds.

The Task Force shall be considered a permanent body. It shall not sunset. Given that displacement of Washington-connected individuals continues to the present day, the Task Force's mandate is ongoing and not limited to historical cases.

 

SECTION 3

Mandatory Records Transfer

Upon passage of this bill, the following entities shall be legally compelled to transfer all relevant records to the Washington Displaced Children Reunification Task Force within 180 days of the Task Force's establishment.

Entities subject to mandatory transfer include all county courthouses statewide, all hospitals and medical facilities both currently operating and defunct with records held by successor entities, all religious institutions and faith-based organizations that operated maternity homes, placement facilities, or residential care functions at any point from 1940 to present, all private adoption agencies both currently operating and defunct, all maternity homes and residential care facilities, any private individual or private estate found to be holding records relevant to child placement or removal activities, and any out-of-state entity holding records pertaining to a Washington-connected child.

Tribal nations shall be consulted on a government-to-government basis consistent with their sovereign status. Participation by tribal nations in records transfer shall be voluntary and conducted entirely on terms established by each respective nation.

Failure to comply with mandatory transfer within the established window shall constitute a violation subject to civil penalty. The Task Force shall have authority to refer non-compliant entities to the Attorney General for enforcement action.

Once records are transferred, the transferring entity relinquishes all custody and all gatekeeping authority over those records permanently. No transferring entity shall have the right to restrict, delay, or condition the Task Force's use of transferred records in any way.

All transferred records shall be held in a sealed, protected repository accessible only to Task Force members and designated investigative staff. Individual privacy shall be protected within the repository. Aggregate data may be published. Individual records shall only be accessed in service of intake, investigation, or reunification functions.

 

SECTION 4

Task Force Composition

The Washington Displaced Reunification Task Force shall be composed of members representing the following categories. No single category shall hold a majority of seats. Survivors of displacement through black market adoption, gray market placement, informal removal, or any other non-court-sanctioned means shall hold the largest single bloc of seats on the Task Force, reflecting the principle that those most impacted by the system have the greatest authority in dismantling it.

Members shall be drawn from the following categories: survivors of black market, gray market, and informal displacement from all racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds, forensic genealogists and geneticists with demonstrated experience in identity reconstruction, tribal representatives appointed in consultation with Washington's federally recognized tribal nations reflecting the disproportionate impact of displacement on Indigenous children, child welfare policy advocates with documented history of survivor-centered work, legal advocates with specific expertise in records access, identity law, and adoptee rights, investigators with professional background in human trafficking, covert removal networks, or related fields, and community representatives from populations historically and disproportionately impacted by displacement including but not limited to Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities.

No member of the Task Force shall have current or recent institutional ties to any entity subject to mandatory records transfer under Section 3. This prohibition exists to prevent conflicts of interest and to ensure the Task Force operates free from the influence of the institutions whose records it holds and whose practices it may investigate.

Members shall serve staggered terms to ensure continuity. Survivor members shall always constitute the largest single bloc regardless of total board size. Vacancies in survivor seats shall be filled by survivors. The Task Force shall establish its own bylaws governing member selection, terms, voting procedures, and conflict of interest policies within 90 days of establishment.

 

SECTION 5

Task Force Authority and Function

The Washington Displaced Reunification Task Force shall serve as the sole repository for all records transferred under Section 3 and shall use those records in active service of its reunification mandate.

The Task Force shall accept intake from any individual who has reason to believe they are a Washington-connected displaced person. Intake shall not be conditioned on the applicant possessing their original birth name, original birth date, adoption paperwork, court records, or any other identifying document. The inability to produce identifying documents is a direct consequence of the displacement itself and shall never be used as a barrier to receiving Task Force services. This is explicit and non-negotiable.

Upon intake, the Task Force shall assign investigative resources to each case. Investigation shall draw on all available tools including cross-referencing of transferred records, forensic genealogy, DNA analysis, and any other methodology determined by Task Force investigators to be relevant and appropriate. The Task Force shall maintain relationships with DNA analysis platforms and forensic genealogy professionals to support this function.

The Task Force shall actively work toward reunification of displaced individuals with biological family members, tribal communities, and cultural heritage. Reunification shall be approached with full respect for the wishes of all parties involved. No reunification shall be forced. The Task Force's role is to locate, connect, and support, not to compel.

The Task Force shall maintain a confidential case management system tracking the status of all open intakes. Case information shall be protected and accessible only to assigned Task Force staff and the individual whose case it is.

The Task Force shall refer any findings suggesting criminal activity to the Washington State Attorney General. This includes but is not limited to evidence of ongoing trafficking, fraudulent records, destruction of records, or obstruction of the Task Force's functions.

The Task Force shall publish an annual public report containing aggregate data on cases opened, cases resolved, records received, and systemic patterns identified. No individual identifying information shall appear in public reports.

The Task Force shall have authority to recommend legislative or regulatory changes to the Washington State Legislature based on patterns identified through its work. These recommendations shall be included in the annual public report and transmitted directly to relevant legislative committees.

 

SECTION 6

Washington Jurisdictional Claim

The State of Washington hereby asserts jurisdictional interest in the displacement of any individual who was a resident of Washington State at the time of their removal, regardless of the state or country to which that individual was subsequently taken, placed, or relocated, and regardless of where records pertaining to that displacement are currently held.

This jurisdictional claim is not limited by state lines, by the location of records custodians, or by the location of entities that participated in the displacement. Washington's interest in its displaced children travels with those children wherever they were taken.

This jurisdictional claim extends to all forms of displacement addressed in this bill including black market adoption, gray market placement, informal removal, Indigenous child separation, human trafficking, and any other non-court-sanctioned means of removing a child from their family of origin.

For purposes of this section, a Washington-connected displaced individual is defined as any person who was born in Washington State, who was residing in Washington State at the time of their removal, or whose biological parent or parents were Washington residents at the time of the individual's birth or removal.

The Task Force shall have authority to request records from out-of-state entities and to pursue interstate cooperation agreements with other states to facilitate the retrieval of records pertaining to Washington-connected displaced individuals. The Washington State Attorney General shall provide legal support for interstate records retrieval efforts where needed.

Nothing in this section shall be construed to supersede the sovereign authority of Washington's federally recognized tribal nations. Jurisdictional matters involving tribal members or tribal lands shall be addressed through government-to-government consultation consistent with the principles established in Section 3.

 

 

SECTION 7

Funding

The Washington Displaced Reunification Task Force shall be funded through a dedicated appropriation in the Washington State operating budget. Task Force funding shall be treated as a standalone budget line and shall not be drawn from or compete with existing child welfare, social services, or tribal program funding.

The initial appropriation shall cover the following: establishment and staffing of the Task Force, construction and maintenance of the sealed records repository, intake processing and case management systems, investigative operations including DNA analysis and forensic genealogy services, outreach to displaced individuals and affected communities, and administrative functions including legal support and annual reporting.

Funding shall be renewed annually through the standard state budget process. The Task Force shall submit an annual budget request accompanied by its annual public report. The Legislature shall treat continued funding of the Task Force as a standing obligation consistent with the permanent nature of its mandate established in Section 2.

The Task Force is hereby authorized to pursue supplemental funding through federal grants, private foundations, and other external sources where such funding does not carry conditions that would compromise the Task Force's independence, restrict its mandate, or subject its records or operations to federal oversight. Any supplemental funding accepted shall be disclosed in the annual public report.

No funding received by the Task Force from any source shall be used for purposes outside its established mandate. The Task Force shall be subject to standard state financial auditing to ensure accountability for public funds.

The Legislature acknowledges that the cost of this Task Force is substantially outweighed by the ongoing human cost of leaving thousands of Washington-connected displaced individuals without access to their origins, their families, and their identities. This appropriation is an act of restorative justice.

 

The Burden Currently Falls on Survivors

Under every existing mechanism in Washington State, the displaced person bears the full investigative burden. They must know their original birth name, their original date of birth, which county processed their adoption, and which agency held their file. For individuals displaced through black market networks or informal removal, none of this information exists or is accessible. The system as currently structured makes reunion functionally impossible for a significant portion of displaced persons, not because the information does not exist, but because the gatekeeping structure was designed in an era that prioritized secrecy over the rights of the displaced child.

The proposed Washington Displaced Reunification Task Force would consolidate all available records into a single repository, remove the birth name and birth date barrier at the intake level, and transfer the investigative burden from the survivor to the state, where it belongs.