President Donald Trump signed the “Fostering the Future for American Children and Families” Executive Order last month, thrusting the issue of religious liberty in child welfare into the national spotlight.
The expansive set of initiatives, organized with special leadership from the First Lady, Melania Trump, aims to modernize the foster care system and boost support for youth. Critically, the EO confronts what the administration identifies as pervasive anti-religious bias that limits the pool of potential caregivers.
The EO’s foundational policy states that the current system needs improvement because “some jurisdictions and organizations maintain policies that discourage or prohibit qualified families from serving children in need as foster and adoptive parents because of their sincerely-held religious beliefs or adherence to basic biological truths.”
There are approximately 329,000 children in foster care in the U.S., with a persistent shortage of foster families—especially for sibling groups, older children, and those with special needs.
Shortages result in frequent moves, sibling separation, and, for some, aging out of the system without permanent family connections. The majority of children are eventually placed, though not always in ideal circumstances.
This problem has been escalating, particularly following a Biden-era push in 2023 where the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a rule requiring prospective foster and adoptive parents to affirm a child’s gender identity, which in turn “gave the green light to states to adopt policies limiting who could serve as foster or adoptive parents,” according to American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Naomi Schaefer Riley.
Christian families holding traditional views on sexuality and gender found themselves shut out of the process in several states like California, New York, and Illinois, which require foster parents to affirm and support LGBTQ youth, which may exclude those who do not comply.
In other states, there is a less explicit policy and local practice can vary, often depending on the perspective of the local officials.
There have been several legal cases related to the issue. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which held that the city had violated the First Amendment rights of a Catholic foster care agency by refusing to renew the agency’s contract unless it agreed to certify married same-sex couples as Forster parents.
To combat discrimination, Section 4 of the order, titled “Maximizing Partnerships with Americans of Faith,” directs specific action from federal agencies. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is ordered to “take appropriate action to address State and local policies and practices that inappropriately prohibit participation in federally-funded child-welfare programs by qualified individuals or organizations based upon their sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
This measure effectively puts the full weight of the federal government behind foster parents of faith who are being discriminated against. States that continue this discrimination could lose substantial federal funding, given that about 43 percent of child welfare funding comes from the federal government.
The order seeks to widen the pool of available families at a time when states face severe shortages of licensed homes, sometimes resulting in children being housed in undesirable and unlicensed temporary placements, such as hotels and hospitals.
Shane DeGross, a foster parent in Washington state whose license officials declined to renew after he refused to sign new regulations, emphasized the negative impact of such exclusionary policies on children. DeGross told Fox News that, “Every child deserves a loving home, and when the state puts ideology above children, and when Christian families who exercise their faith are discriminated against, it only harms children, and it decreases the number of foster families.
“Foster families do an incredible job of standing in the gap for these children, so when the state discriminates against people of faith, only children are harmed.”
Religious freedom advocates believe this EO is an important shift. Herbie Newell, president of Lifeline Children’s Services, a Christian nonprofit, explained that the EO is designed to be protective rather than exclusionary: “It doesn’t bar anyone. It just simply protects. It protects Christian foster families, Christian foster agencies, and Christian adoption agencies from being able to live out their closely held religious beliefs and their statements of faith.”
Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans said: “We have every reason for confidence that there will be robust action by the executive branch to ensure that faith-motivated organizations and families are fully welcomed into child welfare programs by states and counties.”While some observers view the order as only “a small spark” that sets a direction rather than providing a detailed map, it represents a significant federal condemnation of policies that discriminate against foster parents based on their sincerely-held religious beliefs.