Holy crap, folks...this one's a doozy...

[dumbseizure]

1. They are rich enough to live in the suburbs, which in Latin America is a big deal.

2. All her paperwork is illegal, and falsified by international law. She will have a hard time getting anything legal done because she wont even be a US citizen let alone have any paperwork to her name. I doubt she even has a birth certificate since everything was proven to be false. She will be like the Amish kids who were born outside the system.

1. Not sure what bearing that has on what I'm talking about. I'm not one of the ones assuming the parents are in some kind of slum or anything. Either family can provide for the child materially. I'm talking about the emotional cost it places on the child.

2. This one's an easy fix, and well within the jurisdiction of the State department. She's spent more time with this family than with any other. She's spent more time in this country than any other. If the courts find that it's best she stay with her current family, it'd be a simple matter to get the paperwork legalized.

Why? Because paperwork doesn't care. It doesn't have feelings or wants or needs, it doesn't undergo trauma or have emotional crises. And that's why this decision doesn't need to be made based on the paperwork.

Yay, a voice of reason.

He isn't a voice of reason, he is the voice of emotion. He refuses to acknowledge that the bureaucracy and international law has no feeling or emotion. If they can't pigeonhole you into a common avenue or form, you don't exist. Since I spent most of my time in and around the bureaucracies I am talking about, its first hand experience. When she gets older and the paperwork becomes a necessity, she will wish she died when that woman snatched her.

Sorry, I should have specified. I was relating the voice of reason part to the child's mental and emotional well being part.

 

[Rumpsteak]

Bring the biological mother to the child, its a win win. Except you know for the mother's family, friends and whoever picks up the bill of housing someone for 50 years.

Give the child back to her mother, I can only imagine what it would be like losing your child.. twice.

 

[dumbseizure]

*reads comments*

Right. Well. Okay. Here's the thing:

In these situations you have to consider the welfare of the child to be paramount because the child is the most vulnerable person in this situation. The child is in a loving home, presumably, and disrupting that and using her as a token in some sort of weird game of moral brinksmanship is going to do nobody any favours.

I can appreciate the sentiment, truly, and also agree that sending the child back to her biological mother seems like the common sense approach but common sense isn't always right. Afterall, common sense would tell us that the world is flat.

1. no it wouldn't.

2. The parents don't live in shacks. They live in the suburbs. That's where the middle class/rich Latin Americans live.

It does really, whilst it is getting better Guatemala still isn't a the most stable of countries and crime is still extremely high; not the best country to raise a child, she'd have a much better life in America.

What sort of life you have isn't solely dependant on what sort of country you live in. Nor is there a direct link between happiness and what country you live in.

Just because the parents who adopted her live in the USA doesn't necessarily mean she will have a better life there than in Guatemala. It is also a horrible argument to use because it is essentially saying "These people can have her because they are American. Sorry, you don't get to have your child anymore".

That is NOT what I'm saying.

Think about it, why did she get kidnapped? most likely because she lived in a country with an extremely high crime rate.

There are over twenty five murders a day in Guatemala city alone and that's completely discounting all other crimes violent or otherwise.

When it comes down to it I don't care about which parents she gets, they both clearly love her dearly if neither party is willing to give her up but I'm thinking about what is best for the child here and it's absolute fact that she would live a far better life in America than in Guatemala so that is where I believe she should remain.

See: The comment above me, he knows what I mean.

Look up.

I swear the Escapist is plagued by more racists every day.

Don't you fucking DARE call me racist.

You don't know how much of my willpower is going into keeping my post to at least a reasonably polite degree because I want to go absolutely ape shit on your ass right now for making such a disgusting accusation.

I was merely going on the FACT that Guatemala is a country with extremely high crime and that Missouri definitely has a much lower crime rate, that is NOT a racist observation, I have nothing against any race of people because racism is fucking stupid.

Yet that didn't stop you from making a generalization that its crime rate justifies her staying. A country with a high crime rate doesn't mean its the same everywhere. Considering they can afford a house in the suburbs, they are pretty well off. A good comparison would be like saying America is a dangerous place because of its crime rate. Yet when you look at the statistics, crime is marginalized to places like downtown LA, parts of New York, Detroit, etc. In other words, large population centers with ghettos.

Do you have any idea how many murders happen in American cities? Quite a fucking lot. Yet that doesn't mean people are running around and killing people in Beverly Hills. Granted there are still crimes in Beverly Hills, but rarely on that level.

Without the specific location of the biological parents, you cannot tell how dangerous the area is. All you are left with is generalizations, and that serves no purpose.

I'm failing to see how that makes him racist..........I'm not quite sure what your line of thinking is.

Generalization of statistics is racist?

 

[WaysideMaze]

Legally, back to her biological parents.

Morally, I honestly have no idea. A terrible situation all around.

 

[The Diabolical Biz]

Snip

I don't really want to get involved, but wouldn't you say the fact that she was kidnapped in the first place bespeaks volumes about the safety of her area?

I mean I'm sure there were mitigating factors, but it seems somewhat harsh to brand someone a racist for pointing out that the country in which the girl was bloody kidnapped was probably a less safe environment.

 

[templar1138a]

The biological parents. This isn't a case of the parents having abandoned the kid and later wanting her back, or the kid having been taken away by social services. Their daughter was KIDNAPPED.

For example, say you bought a used copy of Final Fantasy 7 (never played it myself, but I know how much many of you treasure that game). Let's also say it's very hard to get copies in as good condition as the copy you buy (this may be the real case, I haven't looked into it, let's keep it a hypothetical). You play the game, you love it, and you keep it in good condition because you know you'll want to play it again and again throughout the years.

Then a guy knocks on your door telling you that several years ago, his copy of Final Fantasy 7 was stolen. He's tracked it to you. He has photos showing that the game box has an almost-indistinguishable - but distinct once you see it - smudge or scratch. You check the box. Sure enough, that smudge or scratch is there.

So, you bought stolen property. It's not yours. You bought it, but it's not yours because the previous owner didn't consent to give it up. Give it back or you'll be wracked with guilt every time you look at it.

It's the same thing with this girl. The adopted parents should - in fact, MUST - give the girl back. No excuse about loving or caring for her will be sufficient, because the mother loved her daughter enough to look for her all those years. To a foreign country, no less! And now that the adopters are aware, they're going to feel guilty every time they look at the girl, struggling with the notion that they were party to human trafficking. Giving the girl back would give them peace of mind.

Besides, the girl is only seven. No, she doesn't remember her mother, but it really won't take her long to get used to living with her again.

 

[Ickorus]

*reads comments*

Right. Well. Okay. Here's the thing:

In these situations you have to consider the welfare of the child to be paramount because the child is the most vulnerable person in this situation. The child is in a loving home, presumably, and disrupting that and using her as a token in some sort of weird game of moral brinksmanship is going to do nobody any favours.

I can appreciate the sentiment, truly, and also agree that sending the child back to her biological mother seems like the common sense approach but common sense isn't always right. Afterall, common sense would tell us that the world is flat.

1. no it wouldn't.

2. The parents don't live in shacks. They live in the suburbs. That's where the middle class/rich Latin Americans live.

It does really, whilst it is getting better Guatemala still isn't a the most stable of countries and crime is still extremely high; not the best country to raise a child, she'd have a much better life in America.

What sort of life you have isn't solely dependant on what sort of country you live in. Nor is there a direct link between happiness and what country you live in.

Just because the parents who adopted her live in the USA doesn't necessarily mean she will have a better life there than in Guatemala. It is also a horrible argument to use because it is essentially saying "These people can have her because they are American. Sorry, you don't get to have your child anymore".

That is NOT what I'm saying.

Think about it, why did she get kidnapped? most likely because she lived in a country with an extremely high crime rate.

There are over twenty five murders a day in Guatemala city alone and that's completely discounting all other crimes violent or otherwise.

When it comes down to it I don't care about which parents she gets, they both clearly love her dearly if neither party is willing to give her up but I'm thinking about what is best for the child here and it's absolute fact that she would live a far better life in America than in Guatemala so that is where I believe she should remain.

See: The comment above me, he knows what I mean.

Look up.

I swear the Escapist is plagued by more racists every day.

Don't you fucking DARE call me racist.

You don't know how much of my willpower is going into keeping my post to at least a reasonably polite degree because I want to go absolutely ape shit on your ass right now for making such a disgusting accusation.

I was merely going on the FACT that Guatemala is a country with extremely high crime and that Missouri definitely has a much lower crime rate, that is NOT a racist observation, I have nothing against any race of people because racism is fucking stupid.

Yet that didn't stop you from making a generalization that its crime rate justifies her staying. A country with a high crime rate doesn't mean its the same everywhere. Considering they can afford a house in the suburbs, they are pretty well off. A good comparison would be like saying America is a dangerous place because of its crime rate. Yet when you look at the statistics, crime is marginalized to places like downtown LA, parts of New York, Detroit, etc. In other words, large population centers with ghettos.

Do you have any idea how many murders happen in American cities? Quite a fucking lot. Yet that doesn't mean people are running around and killing people in Beverly Hills. Granted there are still crimes in Beverly Hills, but rarely on that level.

Without the specific location of the biological parents, you cannot tell how dangerous the area is. All you are left with is generalizations, and that serves no purpose.

I made my assumptions based on these two Wikipedia pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Guatemala

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Missouri

Pretty sure that doesn't make me racist, it makes me a guy who did a bit of research and came to the best conclusion he could with the resources he had.

Yes, I do research before I post on touchy subjects.

 

[Erttheking]

If this was reversed - a US born child kidnapped and now being raised in Guatemala the US State Department would be sending in the FBI, or the Marines.

That this is even being debated is double standards and nothing else.

Uh...but that's not the point of the matter.

OT: Personally I think it depends on how the kid feels in situations like this. If the kid is happy, loved for and cared for where she is and the parents are fit and she wants to stay, she should stay. If those considtions aren't met...then she should probably go back to the parents...just my two cents, my uneducated two cents.

 

[Dastardly]

I know you go on about love and family, but look at the bigger picture and the problems she will have in America. She wont even legally exist thanks to the monolithic system.

And no, the courts cant magically legalize documents since international law prohibits her adoption in the first place.

It is far easier and healthier for the two nations in question to work on legalization paperwork than it is to just uproot a child from her home. The courts can, with proper cooperation between them, "just magically legalize documents." That happens to be among their wizardly powers. I'm not talking some unilateral, "We say she's ours now."

If it's found that her home here is the best option, I don't see it being this tremendous issue, in such a high profile case, for citizenship to be granted. Hell, I think it'll end with the birth parents being made citizens, too.

Sure, in a sense, the paperwork matters. But the good of the child matters infinitely more.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I'd agree that the adoption process is moot and that the Missouri adoptive parents have no legal right to keep the child, but I think this is one of those areas where just putting blinders on and applying the law could lead to some bitter consequences.

You're taking a seven year-old child who for all she knows was raised in Missouri by American and English-speaking people, and you're honestly going to have to explain to her that she'll have to be leaving those people whom she considers to be her parents? Nah, the two or three people who just went "Well, duh, it's easy!" in their responses just don't know how hard it is to lose a child. The worst part is, this goes double, here. Once for the American family who stands to lose her, and once more for the Guatemalan birth mother who also has every legal right to reclaim her child.

This is one of those cases where I think laws should be put aside and matters of the heart should be considered. I'd say fly the Guatemalan mother over to Missouri, get an interpreter if she doesn't speak English, and hash it out with the adoptive parents. Reach some kind of consensus.

On the flipside, my gut feeling is she should stay with her adoptive parents. She'll receive better care on American soil, along with better education and better future prospects. I don't mean to rain on anybody's parade, but five years is a long time. To assume the kid is even going to want to adjust to a new life in Guatemala or that she'll be able to is pretty hazy.

Of course, it all depends on the kid. If she's still as plastic and malleable as kids are at that age, she'll have forgotten English and picked up Spanish in no time flat. What really worries me is *if* she retains any memories of America, should she leave.

Assuming this gets drawn out, which it probably will, she'll have entered the Age of Reason by the time they'll have reached some sort of consensus. She'll then be able to make her choice.

 

[Dastardly]

Seriously, the fact that you find the whole SHE WAS KIDNAPPED-thing neglectable is scary.

The fact that you're fixated on it, to the point that comprehension of the written word suffers, is no less frightening here.

I understand that she was kidnapped, but not by these people. This is their child. They've loved and raised her as such for years now. I'm willing to bet she's got a pretty solid attachment to them as well. You would seriously expect any parents to just go, "Oh, kidnapped you say? Well, here! Have her back immediately! We surely don't want to face any inconveniences or difficulties, so we'll gladly toss our child out to strangers!"

And make no mistake: To these parents, the birth parents are strangers. Given what we know about brain development and memory, it's extremely likely that they're strangers to the little girl, too.

In this case, you have an unhealthy fixation with fulfilling only the strictest technical definition of "justice." Remand the woman's stolen property to her, to hell with any other consequences! Part of making a "just" decision, however, is looking at the whole picture.

This isn't about awarding the adoptive parents with anything. It's not about punishing the birth parents for anything. Neither of them are at fault for what has happened here. But you know what? Neither is the little girl, and she's the one most affected by what is decided here.

Justice for her above anyone else, says I.

 

[Raven's Nest]

I am sorry, but this just blows my mind.

For starters, at home is where a child should be and with her parents? What is to say that she does not consider her where she lives and her foster parents her home and family? A large amount of people who have foster parents from a young age consider them their "real family and home".

Parents produce offspring so they can raise them themselves. That is what a family is. A child belongs with her parents because that is what a family is.

This child was kidnapped, abducted, taken, stolen pick a word that makes it easier for you to understand. This child does not, and will not ever belong to that adopted family. The adoption was a fraud. Profit was likely involved. The foster parents, as much as I can sympathise with them, do not belong with this child.

Please can you recognise the difference between a legal adoption and an ongoing abduction which is exactly what this case is.

The fact that the child may recognise these adoptive parents as her true parents is a lie...

Until all the parties agree that it is in the best interest of the child that she remain with the adoptive parents and all the legal paperwork is settled, I will refuse to acknowledge that the child is where she should be.

This also blows my mind.

Will PROBABLY come to terms with it EVENTUALLY? You are not building a strong case for this. What you are pretty much saying is that it may happen, or it may not, and yet you are for this based on chance.

Also, it wouldn't be worse at 14, because at the age she would have an understanding of what is going on. How do you explain to a 7 year old that the family she currently lives with isn't her real one, and that she has to move away to be with a family she may not even remember?

You are speaking like someone who has clearly never met an adopted or fostered child who was aware of their own situation. You'll just have to trust me when I say that I have, and a 14 year old whirlwind of hormones and emotions reacts significantly worse to a situation such as being ripped from a family unit and being told they have a new family. I just can't stress this point enough.

I'm not an expert on child psychology but I really feel it would be better for a child to go through this kind of thing now when they have barely begun school and making friends than be forced to make a decision at 18 years old when they are legally an adult and will face some extremely complicated decisions.

This child will discover all of this in a few years time. Trying to pretend it never happened will not make the problem go away. And after all this time she will still be registered as an abducted person whether she feels this way or not. As others have mentioned, those kind of legal issues cannot be magic'd away no matter how much you sit there and say "But she'll get upset"...

I personally am not interested in how individuals deal with emotions or how much we "think" individuals deal with them. I am interested in the long term benefit of the child and of the political and legal shit-storm that is brewing around it.

 

[SorrySight]

It is far easier and healthier for the two nations in question to work on legalization paperwork than it is to just uproot a child from her home. The courts can, with proper cooperation between them, "just magically legalize documents." That happens to be among their wizardly powers. I'm not talking some unilateral, "We say she's ours now."

If it's found that her home here is the best option, I don't see it being this tremendous issue, in such a high profile case, for citizenship to be granted. Hell, I think it'll end with the birth parents being made citizens, too.

Sure, in a sense, the paperwork matters. But the good of the child matters infinitely more.

You're making the (admittedly common) mistake that children are more valuable than adults and are treated as such by law.

It doesn't matter that she considers the US home, it isn't hers by law. It doesn't matter if the adopting parents treat her kindly, they didn't acquire her legally. Her false paperwork is nullified, she cannot have a future in the US. She cannot acquire new paperwork legally, the US government will not break international law to help one child that isn't even a citizen.

 

[razer17]

If you buy stolen property, you don't get to keep it, even if you didn't know it was stolen. Same principle here, I think. It will suck for the adoptive parents, but the biological parents should have the right too get her back.

A child is not property, and it is illegal to treat them as if they are.

I wasn't saying children are property. I was making an analogy to simplify my thoughts on what should happen.

 

[Dastardly]

Actually, they DO have legislation, but the US refuses to act on it because it requires her to be uprooted. They are currently using the "we didn't sign it back then" excuse.

Funny how that works, huh? Want to know the name of the agreement they have?

The Hague Abduction Convention.

When was it signed by both parties, incidentally?

Or... do you mean to say... the US should just ignore the letter of the law, make it up on the fly? I mean, are their hands tied by paperwork, or are they not? Either answer is fine, but we need to remain consistent.

If the US is bound by paperwork down to the very letter, then they're stuck. The abduction is filed as having taken place in 2006, regardless of when the girl left the country. If the US can fudge the paperwork a bit and retroactively apply the treaty to her case, it means what you're selling me about their inability to retroactively legitimize her citizenship is untrue.

It doesn't matter to me where the girl ends up. Whichever is best for her. But the arguments some people are putting forth on either side are just wildly inconsistent.

That is like saying we shouldn't be giving cancer patients chemo because there should be magic go-go juice instead.

Please. You know as well as I do that this was far too ridiculous a comparison to allow it to slide. That kind of stuff doesn't fit in a rational discussion, which is all I'm here for.