Thought this might be an insight into the sort of problems they have on the
border. From today's Albuquerque Journal:
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Border Child's Future in the Balance
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
LAS CRUCESâ She was born in the back of an ambulance to a Mexican mother
who was being rushed to a Deming hospital.
After abuse charges were filed against the mother in the hospital, the
infant was placed with an American couple. Eighteen months later, they consider
her their own.
Now the toddler is at the heart of a custody battle between the child's
Mexican father and her American foster parents.
U.S. and Mexican social workers who investigated the case agree the child
would be better off in the home of her American foster parents, who want to
adopt her.
But the biological father says she belongs with him.
A May 24 hearing is scheduled in which a District Court judge in Silver
City will consider removing the U.S.-born child from her American foster
parents and returning her to her biological father in Palomas, Mexico, just
across the border from Columbus.
That, says a friend of the foster parents, could have disastrous results
for the child.
"It breaks my heart to think of the possibilities if she (the child) is
forced to leave the United States," said Silver City resident Carolyn Koury.
Details of the case are sketchy, because it has been sealed in order to
protect the child's privacy.
A spokeswoman for the state Children, Youth and Families Department, which
is seeking to terminate the biological parents' custodial rights in the Silver
City case, declined to discuss specifics of the case.
Attorneys for the foster family and the child's biological father also
declined to discuss the case because it is sequestered.
The biological father asserted his custodial rights to the child after CYFD
began proceedings several months ago to terminate them.
Sources have confirmed that District Judge Henry Quintero has declined to
hear evidence concerning the biological parents' fitness to care for the child.
Quintero instead has focused on whether the father's rights were violated
when New Mexico authorities removed the child from her mother, who was arrested
days after the child's birth at Mimbres Memorial Hospital in Deming on a
fourth-degree felony charge of abandonment or abuse of a child.
The case began when a pregnant Palomas, Mexico, resident, Sandra Ivon
Garcia, now 23, went to the nearby Columbus port of entry on Oct. 31, 2004, and
requested an ambulance. She had gone into labor.
Garcia gave birth to the baby girl in the ambulance on the way to Deming.
Positive for drugs
Suspicious circumstances led hospital personnel to test the baby for the
presence of drugs, said Virginia Chavez, and the tests returned positive.
Deming police were summoned, as was Chavez, who at the time was a CYFD
social worker in Deming. Police asked Chavez, who speaks Spanish, to tell
Garcia that they were taking the newborn and placing her in the care of CYFD.
"She wasn't heartbroken or crying or anything," Chavez said in an
interview. "She just said OK."
Neither Sandra Garcia nor her boyfriend, Pedro Vitela, the baby's purported
biological father, could be reached for comment in Palomas.
Local authorities, including Palomas Mayor Stanislaus Sanchez, who has
become involved in the case at the request of the Mexican consulate in El Paso,
said last week the couple had left town for Ascension, a farming town about 60
miles south of Palomas. But Sanchez said the couple, through relatives,
expressed their desire to regain the toddler.
Garcia was allowed to recuperate for several days in the hospital. Then she
was arrested Nov. 4, 2004, according to state Magistrate Court records. The
district attorney's office dismissed the charge one month later.
Virginia Chavez and Noema Chavez, no relation, a Palomas-based social
worker with Mexico's family services agency, DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la
Familia), both investigated the case to determine what was best for the child.
In separate interviews, they both said their investigations led them to
conclude the baby would be best served by being left in the custody of the
American foster parents.
Virginia Chavez and Noema Chavez said the baby's biological parents did not
appear to be ready or willing to care for the child.
Other children
Noema Chavez said Garcia had already birthed and given up three children
before she had her fourth child on the way to Deming.
One girl, Noema Chavez said, is cared for by her maternal grandmother. A
second child, a boy, is cared for by an El Paso family. The location of the
third child is unknown.
Since giving birth to her fourth child in Deming, Garcia has had a fifth
child, now a six-month-old baby in the care of Vitela's sister, Noema Chavez
said.
After Garcia gave birth to her daughter on the way to Deming, Virginia
Chavez visited Palomas to interview relatives and determine their willingness
and ability to take custody of the newborn.
The grandmother, already caring for one of her daughter's children,
declined to take on another child, Virginia Chavez said.
Virginia Chavez said that, when she interviewed Vitela, he could not tell
her his own birthday and initially expressed no interest in caring for the
child. "He said no because his grandmother was supporting him, but maybe she
could take care of the baby," Virginia Chavez said. "He would have to check
with her."
Virginia Chavez also said Garcia admitted in an interview that she used
drugs and claimed her boyfriend pushed them on her.
No-shows
After Garcia was released from detention in Deming, CYFD arranged visits
for the biological parents with the baby at the Columbus port of entry.
The foster parents, with the baby in tow, made the 90-minute drive to the
port of entry every week for six weeks. "Neither mother nor father ever
appeared at any of the arranged visits," Koury said.
Since the arranged visits stopped, the biological parents have had
virtually no contact with the child.
Removing the child from her foster parents, who have raised her over the
last year and a half, would be an emotionally wrenching change for the little
girl, Virginia Chavez said.
"In my opinion, she is the child of those foster parents," Virginia Chavez
said. "They (Garcia and Vitela) gave her up willingly when she was born, and
they should not get a second chance to destroy her life. I'm strongly in favor
of this girl staying with the foster family."
Noema Chavez agrees.
She has remained in contact with the child's biological family and was
involved with the fifth child's placement with Garcia's sister.
"They don't want the child," said Noema Chavez of the baby's Mexican
biological parents.
Noema said she believes the biological parents have other plans for the
baby besides caring for her.
"This is absolutely the truth. She (Sandra Garcia) will try to sell that
child," Noema Chavez said. "The situation is very ugly."
Noema Chavez said she is scheduled to appear as a witness in the May 24
proceeding before Judge Quintero, when the toddler's fate could be decided.
Other cases
Angela Adams, CYFD's acting director of child protective services, said New
Mexico has taken custody of children of Mexican mothers who have given up their
newborns.
In such cases, CYFD will first try to place the child with relatives in
Mexico, when appropriate. In general, Adams said, Mexican authorities are eager
to see the child returned to relatives in Mexico.
But, Adams said, there have been cases "where the Mexican government agreed
with us that it's best for the child to be left here in New Mexico."
Socorro Cordova, spokeswoman for the Mexican consulate in El Paso, said
Mexican officials were content to let a New Mexico judge sort out the legal
issues and determine where the child, now with dual citizenship, ends up.
"We need to wait until a judge declares what's going on in this particular
case," Cordova said. "It's a difficult case, it's a complicated case."
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/state/461934nm05-21-06.htm
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