Mayor Eric Adams defiantly stood behind the city’s Administration of Children’s Services on Tuesday, swatting back accusations that the troubled agency’s adherence to lefty ideals is putting kids at risk.
Adams continued to contend that ACS workers make the right calls whether to take a child out of a home — even in the face of a Post exposé finding that at least seven kids in the agency’s care died since the start of 2024.
Many ACS critics — including a whistleblower — have lambasted the agency for adopting progressive-inspired policies that prioritize keeping children with their families, and even argue it can be racist to do so.
But the mayor insisted ACS workers are working to strike a balance between protecting kids from harm and the potentially traumatic decision to take them from their families.
“It’s not far-lefty policies that are saying, ‘Let this child stay,’” Adams said during his weekly news briefing. “No, they’re making the right decision. There’s a balance – do you want to take a child out of a house and break up a household, or do you want to make sure that child is removed because the child needs to be safe?”
Adams acknowledged the tragic deaths detailed in The Post, but argued the number of children that ACS saved is a better indication of its success.
The agency placed 3,000 kids in foster care last year, he said.
“That shows they’re going to make the right call based on what’s in front of them,” he said. “Any child that loses his or her life while in an unsafe environment, it breaks our heart. But I know those men and women who are in ACS, they respond to these cases over and over again and they make the right decision.”
The child services agency has long faced scrutiny for failing to protect kids, with horrifying high-profile cases — such as 4-year-old Jahmiek Modlin, who died weighing just 19 pounds — grabbing headlines with disturbing regularity.
Adams last backed the agency after Promise Cotton, 4, was left trapped in a Bronx apartment for at least two weeks with the decomposing bodies of her mother and 8-year-old brother Nazir Millien.
ACS caseworkers and NYPD cops had both knocked on the family’s door.
Adams said Tuesday privacy laws forbid the city from revealing details about child deaths under ACS’ watch.
He also said ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser will conduct reviews, but stopped short of saying caseworkers could face consequences.
“If someone was supposed to carry out an investigation and didn’t, that’s problematic and we’re going to address that,” he said. “But if they use their best professional observation to determine that child should not be removed, then that process we have to respect.”
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