Amid an avalanche of concerns from parents, parental rights advocates, and churches, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) earlier this week signed into law a measure that would allow virtually any adult to take custody-like control of a child, including making medical care decisions on their behalf and enrolling them in schools. Experts say parents who have children enrolled in the state’s public schools must take immediate precautions and file an emergency contact list with their child’s school.

On October 12, Newsom signed AB 495 into law, which the governor’s office claims “supports parents’ rights and ensures educational institutions are equipped to support families in times of crisis.” The bill’s author claimed that the legislation was needed in order to give illegal immigrants who are detained by law enforcement officials a way to have their children taken care of.

But as numerous legal experts and advocacy groups have pointed out, the bill contains massive loopholes that allow any adult who claims to be a relative “within the fifth degree of kinship” to fill out a simple “Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit” in order to take custodial authority over a child. As the California Family Council has emphasized, the affidavit would allow any adult to claim a familial relationship with a child without the school being able to verify the claim’s authenticity, since “no parent signature, no notary, no verification, and no parent notification [is] required.”

Experts like Dean Broyles, president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law & Policy, say that AB 495 is “a child trafficker’s and child predator’s dream bill.” He went on to point out that there is no language in the bill that limits it to only applying to children of immigrant families, meaning any child could be potentially targeted. “Anyone falsely claiming kinship can easily sign the affidavit, access a child, obtain medical care, and enroll them in another school,” he explained. “Even the most basic safeguard of a notary is not required to confirm the true identity of the person accessing your child. AB 495 violates fundamentally constitutionally protected parental rights, endangers California’s children, and will be appropriately legally challenged and struck down.”

Jonathan Keller, president and CEO of the California Family Council, has been leading the charge against the legislation ever since it was first introduced in February.

“AB 495 is really, I think, one of the most concerning pieces of legislation that we’ve seen come out of the Capitol in Sacramento in quite some time,” he remarked during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Thursday. “We always see a little bit of craziness. We have some truly, I think, beyond the pale legislators up there. In this case, actually, this kind of came out of left field as so much of what happens in Sacramento does.”

As Keller went on to contend, even if the bill’s authors had good intentions for introducing the legislation, they failed to take into account its unintended consequences.

“I think every parent out there would want their own children, if something happened to them, … to be placed with the next of kin, our family members,” he acknowledged. “That’s not what this is about. This bill is so much broader than this. Despite the fact that they have tried to amend it and revise it in the 11th hour to say, ‘Well, this is going to apply to anyone who is deported, detained, or deployed.’ They’re trying to actually, if you can believe it, loop in families in the military and say, ‘Well, this is a way to try to protect even children of military families.’ Again, that’s not what this is about.”

Keller further described how the bill’s authors changed the language of the legislation after an uproar ensued over parental rights. “[O]ne of the really insidious bait and switch they did on this — some people might see the news reports that said, ‘They removed the section that says no parental signature is required.’ That’s true. But they did not insert a section that says a parental signature is required. So it’s this very clever Trojan horse to make it seem like they’re protecting parents, but it’s a real danger.”

Now that the bill has been signed into law, Keller detailed how parents who have children in the Golden State’s public schools can take action to protect their children from the new measure.

“This is something that is going to immediately start to affect families,” he underscored. “And I would strongly encourage … all parents to revise their existing caretaking arrangements. I encourage you to go look at your emergency contact list. If your kids are in public school, make sure that it is clear in writing — you, your spouse, your family — only people you designate should be authorized to make any decisions for your child.”