Controversy Surrounds AB495 - Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025

Protections for Children of Illegal Immigrants or “The Legalized Child Kidnapping Bill”*?

The California Legislature Passed AB495 and Governor Newsom Signed it on October 12, 2025.

Many California parents are very concerned about the steady erosion of parental rights with every new law coming out of the California legislature, and AB495 is no exception.

Introduced by Celeste Rodriguez (Democratic Assembly Member, representing the 43^rd district based in the eastern San Fernando Valley), The “Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025”, amends the Education Code, Family Code, Health and Safety Code, and Probate Code, in order to protect the identity of children of illegal immigrants and to provide for their care should their parents be detained or no longer reachable. 

The new law slightly revises the definition of a relative who is authorized to execute a “Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit”, granting them the same rights to authorize school-related medical care and mental health treatment as a legal guardian and the new law authorizes health care providers to accept the affidavit without questioning it, even though the affidavit does not require notarization, a background check, or court approval. There are no checks and balances in place.

Rather than ensuring that a minor child is being cared for by a court-appointed guardian, the schools will now be relying on the parent’s emergency contact information or on a signed affidavit prepared by anyone who has knowledge of the child and who is claiming that the parent is not able to be contacted. 

The Education Code is amended to read:

If an employee of a school is aware that a pupil’s parent or guardian is not available to care for the pupil, the school shall first exhaust any parental instruction relating to the pupil’s care in the emergency contact information it has for the pupil to arrange for the pupil’s care. A school is encouraged to work with parents or guardians to update their emergency contact information and not to contact Child Protective Services to arrange for the pupil’s care unless the school is unable to arrange for care through the use of emergency contact information or other information or instructions provided by the parent or guardian.

The definition of who can sign the affidavit, which has been used for more than a decade under California law, has changed slightly.

Prior to amendment, Family Code Section 6550 read:

1. “Qualified relative,” for purposes of item 5, means a spouse, parent, stepparent, brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, first cousin, or any person denoted by the prefix “grand” or “great,” or the spouse of any of the persons specified in this definition, even after the marriage has been terminated by death or dissolution.

Under the new Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025 the definition of relative is:

An adult who is related to the child by blood, adoption, or affinity within the fifth degree of kinship, including stepparents, stepsiblings, and all relatives whose status is preceded by the words “great,” “great-great,” or “grand,” or the spouse of any of these persons even if the marriage was terminated by death or dissolution.

The original version of the bill included “non-relative extended family members” as being able to sign the affidavit, but this category was removed after being heavily criticized. 

The new law prohibits any collection of immigration status information or documents of pupils or their family members by the schools and prohibits any cooperation with law enforcement or immigration authorities unless the school is presented with a judicial warrant, subpoena, or court order.  If a school is contacted by law enforcement, the school principal must report this contact to the State Attorney General.  The State Attorney General will publish “model policies” to align with the new law by March 1, 2026. The new law also keeps all court records, petitions, orders, and documents related to the appointment of guardians confidential and not even disclosable to law enforcement officers or agencies engaged in immigration enforcement without a court order.

Leslie Sawyer, a Mountain Top Media podcaster in Redding, recently posted a video that was reposted on 10/13/25 by the account entitled “Wall Street Apes” on the social media platform “X”, wherein she described the new law as “A human trafficking nightmare for California….Let your local school boards and your city councils know you don’t approve of this….We need to pray to protect all of the children of California and hold people accountable for these bills.”  Ms. Sawyer was also referencing Assembly Bill 727 which was approved and signed by Governor Newsom on 10/10/25, mandating crisis hot line numbers be put on the back of every student’s identification card, for grades 7 – 12, and including the Trevor Project suicide prevention hot line, which advocates for LGBTQ+ students and was recently defunded by the Trump administration.  She stated in her video that The Trevor Project is involved with human trafficking. The post has received over 600,000 views on X in just over a day.

*Quoted from Wall Street Apes – X Account – Describing the account on its profile page as Unfiltered Breaking News – 1.1 Million Followers