Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is considering installing a radical activist — who wants to abolish Child Protective Services — to lead the city’s welfare agency for children, The Post has learned.
Angela Burton is in the final stages of interviews to lead the Administration of Children’s Services, a source close to the selection process told The Post.
Like the statewide CPS, the ACS conducts investigations of suspected abuse and manages the city’s foster care system.
Burton, 65,is a well-known radical who is part of the non-profit Children’s Rights’ New York Mandated Reporting Working Group, whose mission is to “narrow” mandated reporting laws and “stopping the invasive investigations they trigger statewide,” per the group’s website.
“For decades, mandated reporting laws have led to the over-surveillance and separation of families, especially black, Latine, and under-resourced families,” the group claims on it website.
She is a frequent critic of the state’s ACS analogue Child Protective Services and foster care, and casts attempts to remove children from homes of suspected child abuse as racist.
“We don’t need CPS. CPS is slow extractive genocide for black people in America. We know what you’re up to,” she posted on X in 2023.
She described the state analogue to ACS as “the same as child slavery” in a July 2023 post on X.
Burton has also called to abolish the “foster care industrial complex.”
She has repeatedly described CPS employees as racist and even referred to the child case workers as a “grave and imminent threat.”
“CPS investigations terrorize over a third of all children & OVER HALF (53%) of all BLACK children with invasive, traumatizing, generational documented harm. CPS is a grave and imminent threat to children and families,” she posted in 2024.
Burton’s radical views could present a grave danger to city kids, critics warned.
Based on her past statements, Burton’s goal would be to defang the agency and prevent it from removing children from abusive homes, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Rafael Mangual told The Post.
“I think somebody like Angela Burton would accelerate a radical agenda that would leave kids vulnerable and unsafe and ultimately lead to their demise,” he said.
“Absolutely, kids will die.”
Burton is telling allies she’s a shoe-in for the job, according to another source.
“Word is not only getting around, it’s sparking real fear,” the source said, “She’s both radical and ready to take her tweets and make them a reality.”
She previously served as special counsel for interdisciplinary matters for the New York State Office of Court Administration’s Justice Initiatives department, which handles “child welfare and juvenile and adolescent justice initiatives,” per its website.
She claimed in a July 2023 post on X she was fired the in 2022, because she planned to speak out against investigating abuse claims at a government panel.
ACS referred The Post to City Hall. The mayor’s office and Burton did not respond to requests for comment. A state court spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
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