Thalia Gonzalez arrived at Long Island Jewish Medical Center prepared. When she checked in for her scheduled induction on July 6, she had her cousin and sister-in-law with her for support, a car seat ready to take her newborn son home, and a small bassinet.

But when Gonzalez left the hospital four days later, the car seat was empty, the bassinet unused. Though her son was in good health, Gonzalez was discharged not knowing when she would have him home with her. She still doesn’t know.

“I didn’t get to have those best bonding moments right after your baby is born,” Gonzalez said.

On July 8, the day after she gave birth, Gonzalez had a routine visit from a hospital social worker who asked her if this was her first baby. Gonzalez, now 27, shared that this was her sixth; her three older children were in foster care and her two younger children lived with their dad. The social worker then asked if her cousin with her in the room was the baby’s father. Gonzalez said she replied that there was no father. 

Gonzalez later learned that conversation triggered a series of events that led to her losing custody of her son. 

“They acted like I was stealing something when I just wanted to be with my child,” Gonzalez said. 

She believes all of this stemmed from the hospital’s concern about her ability to parent with children currently in foster care — a situation not uncommon for survivors of domestic violence like Gonzalez. On February 21, Gonzalez filed suit against the hospital and its staff. The lawsuit states that  Gonzalez and her son were victims of assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and that her son was falsely imprisoned. Additionally, the lawsuit claims the hospital’s staff was negligent in the care and treatment they provided her — in part because of their bias against domestic violence survivors. 

New York’s Human Rights Law defines domestic violence survivors as a protected class and includes protections for survivors utilizing public accommodations such as hospitals. That statute is invoked in one of the seven allegations against Long Island Jewish Medical Center and its staff outlined in Gonzalez’s lawsuit. 

They acted like I was stealing something when I just wanted to be with my child.

Thalia Gonzalez

When contacted by The 19th, a press representative from Long Island Jewish Medical Center said that the hospital does not comment on pending litigation.

This article is based on Gonzalez’s memory of what happened between July 6 and July 12, 2023, relayed in an extended, exclusive interview with The 19th, review of Gonzalez and her son’s medical records from their hospital stay, notes taken from the child safety conference to determine Gonzalez’s custody status and visitation rights, as well as the details outlined in her lawsuit against Long Island Jewish Medical Center and its staff.

After the initial conversation with the social worker, two medical codes were added to Gonzalez’s medical chart indicating an unsafe home environment. The hospital contacted New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), the governmental agency charged with protecting the safety and well-being of children, to report “inadequate guardianship.” 

ACS then assigned an emergency case worker, who interviewed Gonzalez in the hospital July 9. Gonzalez told the representative that she was living in a family domestic violence shelter because the baby’s father, whom she had cut contact with, had been abusive. According to the lawsuit and interviews with The 19th, Gonzalez had secured a protective order, kept him off the birth certificate and did not invite him to the baby’s birth.

This case worker made contact with the foster care agency overseeing Gonzalez’s older children; according to the filing, the foster care agency case worker explained that Gonzalez had a history of entering relationships with abusive partners and, because of this, expressed concern about Gonzalez’s judgment and ability to parent. 

According to the suit, another member of the hospital social work department contacted ACS after that interview, advising them that the hospital would be placing a social hold on Gonzalez’s newborn — which allows them to take temporary custody.  A child safety conference held a few days later would determine the ultimate outcome for the baby, and who would have custody of him. 

Just days after Gonzalez gave birth, it was decided that her newborn, like her older children, would be in the foster care system. Until then, he would stay at the hospital — and, the lawsuit asserts, Gonzalez was wrongly barred from being able to visit with him there. 

Gonzalez told The 19th that she’s unsure where things went wrong; she had been advised by the foster care agency managing her older children’s cases to be as transparent as possible about her situation. She had taken what she saw as every possible step to maintain a safe start for her son’s life, following the foster care agency’s advice. She alleges in her lawsuit that she explained all of this to the hospital, to ACS, to the foster care agency. And yet, she alleged in the lawsuit, the hospital treated her in a negligent and discriminatory manner, exhibiting bias against a domestic violence survivor and a woman of color who had a long history with the child welfare system. 

Experts told The 19th that many parents who have interacted with the child welfare system — especially women of color who have survived domestic violence like Gonzalez, who is Latina — find themselves trapped in cycles of investigation, surveillance and supervision that frequently result in losing custody of their children.

Dana Sussman, the deputy executive director of Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit organization that defends the civil rights of pregnant people, said women who survive domestic violence frequently face harsher consequences than their abusers in child welfare investigations. The case of an Oklahoma woman made headlines in 2015 when she was sentenced to 30 years in prison for failing to stop her boyfriend from physically abusing her and her young daughter. The boyfriend who hurt them received only 18 years. 

“It all plays into this idea that women have to ascribe to this idealized version of motherhood,” Sussman said. Domestic violence survivors are frequently perceived as “all failing … they’re being blamed for their status as a victim and not ensuring the safety of their pregnancy or their children. And then they face penalties for that.”

People keep trying to use what happened in my past against my future. But that’s not how you treat people, especially somebody that just had a baby.

Thalia Gonzalez

It’s a dynamic Gonzalez said she has reckoned with for over a decade now.

“People keep trying to use what happened in my past against my future,” Gonzalez said. “But that’s not how you treat people, especially somebody that just had a baby. We are the most vulnerable people in the world. I have followed every rule and every court order and do all the things people tell me. But I get to speak out now. Now everyone has to listen to what I have to say.”

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When a child is born in the United States, a parent by default has custody of that child. In theory, the state intervenes and takes custody only when a parent has fallen below a minimum degree of care, a point when any objective observer might say that care is clearly inadequate. 

This is where mandated reporters come in: People who work in professions that interact with children in any way — including health care-related practitioners such as doctors, nurses, hospital staff, social workers — are legally obligated to make a report if they witness or suspect child abuse or neglect. 

In New York, if a mandated reporter suspects something, they contact the New York State Central Register, known as the child abuse and neglect hotline. If they don’t, they can be charged with a crime and lose their license. 

But determining what constitutes neglect is incredibly complex, said David Shalleck-Klein, the executive director and founder of the Family Justice Law Center in New York. A neglect charge can encompass things from insufficient food in a home to drug use in front of a child. According to New York law, a child seeing a parent be physically abused by a partner can also constitute neglect. 

“There’s this incentive for mandated reporters to report everything, because you’re never going to get in trouble for over-reporting something. But you can face drastic consequences for not reporting something — you can be charged with a crime, you can lose your license,” Shalleck-Klein said. “There’s also this public pressure where you don’t want to be the person who didn’t report something when something terrible ended up happening to the child.” 

This pressure can extend not only to mandated reporters, but to the judges asked to rule on neglect and abuse cases, too. What happens as a result of this dynamic, he said, is intense surveillance of low-income families, the people who disproportionately face child welfare investigations. 

In New York City, 45 percent of Black and Latinx children will be the subject of an investigation by ACS by the time they reach 18, compared with 19 percent of White children in the city. Black and Latinx children constitute about 60 percent of all children in New York City, but 90 percent of the children in the foster care system.

Sussman said that mandated reporters frequently flag pregnant and postpartum parents who have interacted with the child welfare system in any way, whether they have children in foster care or have faced a prior investigation, even if it was ultimately resolved in their favor. 

These flags can result in official ACS investigations of abuse and neglect. While there is no ACS policy mandating these types of investigations, they frequently occur as a cautionary measure, Sussman said.

“There’s a lot of broad discretion when it comes to child welfare reporting,” Sussman said.

They are abused by their partners, and then they are abused by the system which is supposed to help them.

David Shalleck-Klein, executive director and founder of the Family Justice Law Center in New York

Shalleck-Klein explained that survivors of domestic abuse often face additional levels of investigation and surveillance — and that’s especially true for mothers who come forward to report their abuse either by filing charges or seeking government assistance and intervention. Doing so frequently brings additional surveillance by the state, most commonly by ACS and its contracted foster care supervisors. This dynamic of routine surveillance after reporting abuse commonly results in mothers facing allegations of neglect themselves. 

“In New York, we have mothers who are reporting, and the term we use is that they are then double abused — they are abused by their partners, and then they are abused by the system which is supposed to help them,” Shalleck-Klein said. “It’s paternalistic and based on generalized stereotyping and biases against survivors of domestic violence. We say to them, ‘You allowed yourself to be abused, so we can’t trust you.’”

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Gonzalez claims in her suit that when she was discharged July 10, she never received any paperwork from the hospital confirming that she was discharging her newborn son to them without any medical reason. Gonzalez said she was in a daze, so shocked and numbed by what had transpired in the days since giving birth. At this point, she said, she had invested all of her hope into the assurance one nurse had given her during her discharge that she would be able to come back and visit her baby the next day, an exchange detailed in her lawsuit. 

On July 11, the day after she was discharged, Gonzalez went to the hospital, where she was allowed to visit with and breastfeed her son in a small room with the door kept open. 

That day at the hospital she also attended her child safety conference, convened by ACS, which included representatives from the agency that managed her older children’s foster cases, a social worker and others. Representatives from ACS and from the foster care agency determined that, with her older children already in the city’s custody in foster care, they would continue to hold Gonzalez’s newborn at the hospital until he could be turned over to ACS for foster care placement. 

Notes from the child safety conference reviewed by The 19th confirm that ACS allowed  Gonzalez normal visitation rights as long as her baby remained in the custody of the hospital and hospital staff was with her. 

After the conference ended, Gonzalez went to the room she had been allowed to breastfeed in and saw her newborn fussing in his hospital bassinet. When she went to hold and comfort him,  a nurse and a different hospital social worker entered the room, saying that they had heard that the conference was over and that Gonzalez’s visitation rights had been terminated. 

The social worker grabbed the baby from Gonzalez’s arms, Gonzalez alleges in her suit against the hospital and the social worker. He immediately started to cry, the lawsuit says. Then, Gonzalez claims, she was told she had to leave immediately and could not touch her son.

Alarmed and stunned, Gonzalez said she then asked to speak to her family court attorney, a request she repeated as she was escorted away. As she was being walked out, she saw a nurse running toward her, which gave Gonzalez a glimmer of hope that perhaps there had been some mistake. Instead, Gonzalez claims, the nurse wordlessly took out a pair of scissors and cut Gonzalez’s visitor’s wristband. 

On July 12, Gonzalez’s attorney from Brooklyn Defender Services filed a petition in family court seeking an emergency hearing about custody, outlining that the hospital had refused to let her visit her son and had her removed from the premises.

Following the hearing, which Gonzalez’s filing says affirmed her visitation rights while her son remained in custody at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, she immediately went back to the hospital, asking for a visitor’s badge so she could see her son. After giving her name, the lawsuit says, a front desk employee went to get a security guard, who told Gonzalez she was not allowed to be at the hospital, and grabbed her shoulder to usher her out. 

In the weeks that followed, her newborn son went from being separated from his mother at the hospital to being placed in the same foster home as his older sisters. All of this had happened without a court order from a judge. 

Any child welfare agency in the United States is supposed to make a case before a judge before removing a child from their home, but an exception exists if the government views a child to be in imminent danger — situations so dire that the time needed to go to court and get an order would jeopardize a child’s safety. These emergency removals are intended to keep a child from being seriously hurt or even killed. 

But emergency removals are regularly called upon by ACS in New York City — so much so that approximately 50 percent of all child removals in the city, including in the case of Gonzalez’s son — are done under emergency removal, Shalleck-Klein said. Shalleck-Klein is one of several lawyers leading a class-action lawsuit against ACS over several of its practices, including the agency’s use of emergency removals.

Gonzalez was never allowed to visit her son in the hospital again. She couldn’t breastfeed. Unable to afford a breast pump, she developed mastitis and grew severely ill. She began experiencing depression and panic attacks, and she still can’t bear to look at photos from her son’s birth.

Despite all of this, Gonzalez is unwavering in her decision to use her voice to call attention to something she suspects has been experienced by other survivors of domestic violence, too. 

“The reason why I got a lawyer for this situation is I feel the court system has been used against me so much,” Gonzalez said. “What they did to me wasn’t something you should have to keep quiet about — and a lot of people do keep quiet. But this was something I had to do.”

Gonzalez alleges in the suit that she and her son faced assault and battery at the hands of the hospital staff in the way they were physically handled when removing Gonzalez from the hospital. The suit also alleges that Gonzalez’s son was falsely imprisoned, characterizing the social hold placed on him and their acting without a court order.

The other causes of action in Gonzalez’s suit largely center around allegations of both intentionality and negligence in the way Gonzalez was treated by hospital staff and the emotional distress it caused her.

“Certainly, emotional distress was very much inflicted on our client, as we made clear in our filing, in the days and weeks after her hospital stay and the hospital is the cause of that,” said Julia Elmaleh-Sachs, Gonzalez’s attorney at Crumiller P.C. 

There is also a cause of action on negligent hiring, supervision, training and retention of employees by the hospital, Elmaleh-Sachs added, pointing at the social worker and the nurse who cut Gonzalez’s wristband. 

“I would hope that they would train all staff to respect and give proper respect to any individual that’s being treated by them, whether that’s a wealthy White woman from Long Island or a poor woman of color who has children in foster care and has been the victim of domestic violence,” Elmaleh-Sachs said.

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Gonzalez’s interactions with ACS began in childhood. She first entered foster care when she was 11 after ACS removed her from her home because of her mother’s history with substance abuse.

At 16 she went to live with an aunt in New Jersey, where she earned admission to a special arts high school. That same year, she was just months away from graduating on an accelerated route when she found out she was pregnant with her first child. Her aunt had told her she couldn’t stay with her anymore with a baby on the way. Gonzalez ultimately moved back to New York City with a friend, never finishing high school. 

By 21, Gonzalez was pregnant with her third daughter, whose father, Gonzalez alleges in her lawsuit, was abusive. Gonzalez ultimately left him, taking her three daughters with her. 

At first, the four lived in a family shelter. Eventually the New York City shelter system gave them a house of their own. They would lie out on their front porch together, watching the clouds move through the sky during the day and the stars come out at night. 

But that did not last long. Someone — Gonzalez never learned who — placed a call to ACS with an allegation of neglect. Days after investigators showed up at her door, a family court judge ruled that the state should take custody of her children. 

She was devastated. She slept on the floor of her kitchen, because seeing her children’s bedrooms was too painful. She vowed to do whatever she could to get her children back, taking court-ordered classes on parenting, domestic violence, anger management and other topics. She began therapy. She regularly visited her three girls, who were placed in foster care. 

A year later, at 22, Gonzalez became involved with a new partner, married him and had two more children. She alleges that, just like what she experienced earlier, her partner became abusive and Gonzalez eventually left. The children from that relationship remain with him; Gonzalez claims he has barred her from seeing them. 

In 2020, at 23, she got a job working at a hotel in New York City, and received multiple promotions and raises. She got an apartment in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Things felt like they were starting to change. 

She started to date an old friend of her brother’s. A few months into their relationship, Gonzalez was shocked, but excited, to learn she was pregnant. Just two months later, Gonzalez noticed a now familiar pattern emerging. She details in her lawsuit that at first her boyfriend became controlling and then, ultimately, violent. 

She contacted her caseworker at the foster care agency, seeking advice; she said she was told to sever all contact with her boyfriend or risk jeopardizing custody of her new baby. So Gonzalez got a no-contact order of protection, changed her locks, blocked her boyfriend from her phone — and, after months of providing documentation of the abuse she had experienced, secured a place for her and her future son at a family domestic violence shelter.

Finally, it was time to go to the hospital to welcome her new child.

 “I just stared at his face and I couldn’t stop looking at him,” she said of the moments following his birth. “I kept thinking, ‘Wow I really made that person.’” She felt empowered by the experience, especially after all she had endured. 

And then the social worker came to make her routine visit. 

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None of what had happened to her at the hospital in the days following her son’s birth made sense to Gonzalez.

She believes that the hospital staff “heard one thing and then had tunnel vision for the rest of my stay. They heard one word, and then click — tunnel vision. The second they heard ‘foster care’ it was just ‘No, no, no, no. No baby is going to be yours.’”

She also wishes more people understood the dynamics that can contribute to someone finding themselves in a relationship that ends up becoming violent. “People don’t understand that you don’t meet someone and ask them, ‘Are you going to punch me in the face tomorrow?’ It’s not like that.” 

Gonzalez explained that abuse mounts slowly — and how hard it can be to then safely leave this kind of relationship, and how doing so can have devastating results. 

“In the beginning, they tell you they are doing all these things for your benefit, to help you. But then it gets deeper and more controlling and then it gets more aggressive and eventually, at some point, it turns physical,” Gonzalez said. “And then it becomes almost impossible for you to leave someone like that without harming yourself or anybody else, especially when you are deep into a relationship.” 

Today, Gonzalez’s son remains in state custody and she’s granted visitation with him twice a week while he is in foster care, placed in the same home as his older sisters. Gonzalez is determined to regain custody of her baby boy — of all of her children. 

I don’t want to be one of those cliché stories. I figured out that it was time to step up and say something.

Thalia Gonzalez

“I am a person like anybody else and I should be treated like one,” Gonzalez said. “Just because I’ve lived the life I’ve lived and got the hand I was dealt doesn’t mean that I’m going to ruin anybody else’s life. My kids aren’t anything but happy with me. And I’m nothing but happy with them.”

As her family court cases and now her suit against the hospital move ahead, Gonzalez said she mainly keeps to herself. She works, comes home, occasionally sees a few close friends. It’s too overwhelming to handle much more than that — though her newly filed litigation against the hospital and its employees has made her feel that much closer to regaining some power and agency.

“People, they don’t know what to do,” Gonzalez said. “They don’t know who to turn to and they get abused over and over again. They get things and family members taken away from them and they have no say, and then from there I think it just becomes a downward spiral in their life. I don’t want to be one of those cliché stories. I figured out that it was time to step up and say something.”