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**(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)**Carole Mikita reporting
Will some of the FLDS children in foster care in Texas be coming to Utah? Attorney General Mark Shurtleff spoke with hundreds of polygamists from Utah and Arizona last night telling them he will support their efforts to bring the children here.
This fourth annual polygamy summit was the largest gathering of its kind yet. The point is to create an open dialogue to help victims of abuse, and last night some of that focus was on the raid in Eldorado.
Shurtleff asked, "How many of you have relatives in Texas who are in custody?" Many hands went up. He then asked, "How many of you would be willing to take them into your home?" It was the same show of hands.
Shurtleff said, "We think it would be wonderful if that were to happen, and we'll continue to try and encourage that."
At last night's polygamy summit before a record crowd of hundreds, Utah's Attorney General said he will help them, but he will still prosecute crimes. Others urged polygamists to simply be responsible. "If older men are having sex with children or teens, then it's a crime, and we do prosecute it," Shurtleff said. "It doesn't matter which community it's in."
Don Timpson, an Arizona resident, said, "Polygamists must develop functioning, secure, [and] stable families. Polygamists have got to be willing to raise their kids, educate them at least to age 18,"
Linda Smith, a family law professor at the University of Utah says relatives of the FLDS children could be affective foster parents. She says, "This would be the perfect time for those folks to make their interests and their identity known to the court officials because they certainly do have an interest in the children, and it may be in the children's interest to be placed with these relatives."
Smith says the courts often try to place children in foster care with extended family, which could come in to play here. But it will be difficult even if the children come to Utah. "The number of children that are placed in foster care and then have failed adoptions, or have difficulties despite the fact that they've been removed from a bad circumstance, it's a lot more challenging," Smith says.
By early June, which is 60 days after they were removed, each child in foster care in Texas will have a status hearing in court. A judge will determine where that child will live for the next 60 days.
E-mail: cmikita@ksl.com
