Complaint Review: CYFD Las Cruces

I am a mother of six beautiful girls. Two live with their father and four live with me. For the past ten years I've raised my girls on my own, but have always had plenty of support from my loving family and friends. My girls are my life. They are my reason for living. On the morning of October 15th, 2012 the day was going smoothly. My oldest daughter was at school, my two year old and one year old were visiting their grandmother, and my three year old had just fallen asleep on my lap watching Spirit.

I get a knock at the door and when I open it, there is a lady with a binder and a police officer standing there. She said she was from CYFD and was there to investigate allegations of drug use around the children. I invited her into my home without hesitation because the allegations were completely ridiculous. She asked me if I would be willing to submit the girls to a drug test just to clear my name and close the case quickly. I agreed. After I agreed, she then proceeded to inform me that the kids would be removed from my custody until the results came back. I began to get upset and I asked her how long it would take. She said a week or two. I asked her why they had to take them when there obviously wasn't any evidence of abuse or drug use. She said that was standard procedure and assured me that it would be the fastest way to resolve the whole situation.

They wouldn't tell me who made the allegations. They didn't leave me any paperwork explaining my rights or anything. They didn't give me a copy of our agreement about the drug testing... They didn't even leave me a number so that I could contact them. She said she would be in touch but still has not contacted me at all. I wasn't too worried at first because they were released into the custody of their dad, but he recently got into trouble with the law and they were given to his parents. My friends told me not to worry because after 30 days CYFD has to close the case without any evidence of abuse. Its past 30 days now and it is still open, and I still can't have my kids back! How can they do this?