In a controversial case that involved the rights of illegal immigrants and their young children, a Guatemalan mother lost her effort today to get back the five-year old son who was taken away from her after her arrest on immigration charges and put up for adoption in Missouri despite her objections....
Encarnación Bail Romero is from Guatemala. She came to the United States illegally some years ago, and worked in Missouri as a migrant farmer. In 2006, she gave birth to her son Carlos (who by law is a U.S. citizen).
Bail Romero was arrested in 2007 during an immigration raid at a chicken processing plant. Federal authorities threw her in prison and took away six-month-old Carlos. A few months later, a judge placed Carlos with a nice white Missouri family, Melinda and Seth Moser, who renamed him Jamison.
The following year, a judge formally terminated Bail Romero’s parental rights and allowed the Mosers to adopt Carlos. The judge felt it was in the child’s best interests to take him away from his mother, because “illegally smuggling herself into the country is not a lifestyle that can provide any stability for the child.” The judge’s reasoning: Bail Romero, who doesn’t speak English, “had not tried to maintain contact or provide for the child.” While she was, y’know, in prison.
“A local teacher’s aide offered to have Carlos cared for by ‘clergy’ of a local church ... In September [of 2007], the teacher’s aide came to see Encarnación in jail where she tried to get her to sign a paper which would relinquish her custodial rights to Carlos. She refused. Later, when Carlos’s uncle went to pick him up from the ‘babysitter,’ he was told that marshals had taken Carlos away. When Ms. Bail Romero learned Carlos was missing, she tried to contact the aide and the sitters, but they did not answer her calls. In the meantime, Carlos had been given to a couple who were interested in adopting him. They served adoption papers to Ms. Romero in English, which she could not read, and several days later were given temporary custody of Carlos by a Missouri judge. For the next ten months, Ms. Bail Romero had no communication with the court. The judge appointed an attorney for Ms. Romero, but he did nothing to defend her case. ... In October 2008, the judge held a hearing for the adoption petition. Ms. Bail Romero was not present as she was unable to attend the proceedings while incarcerated. Ms. Bail Romero’s attorney presented no witnesses and the hearing lasted less than two hours. The judge then ruled that Ms. Bail Romero had ‘abandoned’ her son, terminated her parental rights and changed her son’s first and last names.”