What lies ahead for kids at center of California surrogacy investigation?

The arrest of a California couple this week on conspiracy and child abuse charges has raised critical questions regarding the future of the 21 young children at the center of the case, most of them surrogate-born, who were removed from the couple’s Arcadia mansion and other properties. 

It has been over a year since authorities raided the 10,000-square-foot mansion of Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang in July 2025, and the children were moved into state custody. 

Prosecutors on Tuesday presented a picture of the alleged abuse the children suffered at the property, with the district attorney calling the mansion a “house of horrors.” 

Xuan and Zhang are accused of conspiring to subject 15 of the 16 children living in their Arcadia home — at least 14 of whom were born to surrogates, the district attorney said — to repeated physical abuse. 

The complaint detailed allegations of Zhang and Xuan watching and encouraging the abuse of children, most under 4 years of age, at the hands of various nannies. The parents monitored the alleged abuse through a system of 32 cameras in the home, prosecutors allege.

In one instance, Xuan walked into a room in the mansion called a “learning center” and saw a nanny striking a child, the complaint said. He then allegedly asked the nanny to hit the child harder, delivered open-handed blows to the child’s head and lifted the child in the air with one arm, the complaint said.

Xuan and Zhang, who pleaded not guilty, are each being held on a $20 million bond. Xuan’s attorney, Mitchell Krems, on Tuesday said his client is innocent and that “he is being targeted for exercising his constitutional right to have a large family.”

While the allegations laid out by the district attorney were harrowing, nothing was said about the fate of the children. 

“If it’s bad news, then I don’t want to know”

When reached by CBS News following the parents’ arrest, some of the surrogates involved in the case wondered what would happen to the children, while others said they did not want news about the babies if it was upsetting. 

Vanity McGoveran, a surrogate who gave birth to a baby girl in March 2025, felt relieved when she learned of the arrest. “Finally,” she said. McGoveran said she was hesitant to learn more information about what happened to the child she handed over to the couple. 

“Not if it’s bad news, then I don’t want to know,” she said. 

McGoveran said she didn’t have any knowledge of what happened to the baby. But, according to Nicol Stolar-Peterson, a clinical social worker and child abuse investigator, court proceedings are required within 72 hours after children in California are first removed from a home.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, which oversees local child welfare, likely worked immediately to identify appropriate placement settings for the children. When possible, DCFS places a child with a relative, member of the extended family or with a friend who is able to care for them. If that isn’t possible, the child can be sent to live with a foster parent or to a communal living setting. 

“We have foster parents, we have relative caregivers, we have others that are available to have this child,” said Christina Paddock, an associate professor of social work at the University of Southern California. 

Paddock said that the child welfare system then looks for avenues to provide the children with permanent residency. 

“We always want to move towards that permanency, them having a permanent place to be and to grow, and to grow in a healthy, safe environment is really, you know, the priority,” Paddock said.

According to The New Yorker podcast series “In the Dark,” Zhang and Xuan’s parental rights have not been terminated as the investigation plays out.

A lawyer representing the children declined to comment, citing privacy concerns.

Who is best able to care for the children?

For surrogates across the country who carried children for Zhang and Xuan, this case has raised questions about whether they should be able to care for a child that has been taken from its intended parents. 

Maria Castellanos had two babies as a surrogate for the couple, a boy in 2022 and a girl in 2024. Zhang promised Castellanos she could see them once a year, but went back on her word, Castellanos said. After the children were removed from the home, Castellanos desperately called lawyers to see if she could foster the children but said no one would help. She is now becoming a foster parent, in the hopes she can help care for the children she carried.

“I’m going through the process of becoming a foster parent, which is a process harder to do than become a surrogate or an intended parent,” said Castellanos. 

There is a need for more foster parents in California, according to Paddock, who said there is currently a shortage. Surrogates outside California have also sought custody of children they carried for the couple.

At least five additional babies were born to surrogates in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia following the removal of the 21 kids last year. Those children were also taken into state custody in their respective states. (None of these children are included in the criminal charges filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney.)

Zhang and Xuan filed lawsuits against the surrogates in an effort to regain custody of the babies. An attorney for one of the surrogates, Melissa Epps, said her client was “thankful” for the efforts by the district attorney in California. 

“The 1-year-old child Xuan and Zhang sued to obtain from our client remains safe and happy in Virginia, and we are confident she will continue to do so,” said attorney Pamela DeCamp.

Scott Altman, a law professor at the University of Southern California specializing in family law and jurisprudence, told CBS News about two scenarios in which the surrogates could get to care for the children they gave birth to. One is that surrogates could try to nullify the agreements and set aside the judgment, he said. The other, he said, would be for the surrogates to seek to become foster parents and eventually adopt, like Castellanos is trying to do. 

Altman said the first scenario was really “an uphill battle,” and while he doesn’t think it is impossible, it would be difficult. Surrogates generally don’t have parental rights, and there is a long process the surrogates must go through to become foster parents. 

But still, Altman added, the surrogates could try to become foster parents. 

“I don’t see any reason surrogates shouldn’t apply to foster these children,” Altman said. “If the parental rights of the charged couple are ultimately terminated, the surrogates could seek to adopt the children they gave birth to.”

Altman added that surrogates interested in caring for the children as foster parents must formally request to be matched with them, noting, “It seems reasonable that the state might give them some priority in that process.”