what do you guys think about this case? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

what do you guys think about this case?

Ptichka

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Jul 28, 2003
Hmmm... It seems that the only reason there has been this turnaround is because of complaints against the foster mother... Well that, and the media attention, I bet...
 

ks777

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Aug 15, 2003
Hmmm... It seems that the only reason there has been this turnaround is because of complaints against the foster mother... Well that, and the media attention, I bet...


Yep, you are right. Without the media exposure, the grandparents wouldn't have gotten her back. I was really mad at DSHS and sad for the family. I am glad that it ended the way it should have but I can't overlook what DSHS did to the family, finacially and emotinally. They should be held accountable.
 

Ptichka

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Well, guys, how about this case - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/7883792.stm (it's in England, but I think our two countries' systems are rather similar). Essentially, the parents were accused of child abuse of one of their children (injuries later proved to be a result of a disorder), and had all three of their children taken away. Before anything was proven conclusively, the children were adopted. Now that the parents have been proven innocent, the judge still won't given their children back because of "the finality of adoption orders". The stuff nightmares are made of, IMHO...
 
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
It's good to see attention being paid to these problems. I work in the foster care system as a volunteer advocate. The case I'm assigned to is heartrending. It involves an undocumented immigrant mother and her two small children born here, thus US citizens.

They are in foster care because of poverty and domestic abuse. The abuse was eliminated (father was deported; mother was only a victim) but the mother can't do anything about the poverty because as an illegal she is not eligible for any services and can only do jobs that will give her time off to see the kids and go to her many required appointments with child welfare and immigration. That eliminates a lot of jobs!

The kids are in a decent but not great foster home. The case is moving inexorably toward adoption by the foster mother (a single parent with four foster and two biological children) because what the court is requiring for the biological mother to get her kids back is all but impossible. It is also quite likely that the biological mother will be deported - permanently separating her from her kids, who are apparently US property.

What most appalls me is the government's total control over this family. The mom and kids have no say, and the love and attachment between them - what most people see as the inviolable ties of family - have no legal status. The mom is impossibly boxed in - for example, she can't move in with a boyfriend to share household expenses and childrearing responsibilities, because all the guys she knows are undocumented and the kids cannot be returned to a house with another undocumented person in it because such people can't be adequately background-checked.

As for an earlier comment of Ant expressing surprise about single people as foster parents: it seems to be quite normal here. My training included a case study where the kids removed from their biological home went into foster care (and fast-tracked into adoption) with a family friend who was a single gay male, without any effort to locate a two-parent home for them. I expressed surprise at that, and the reaction I got was, What, are you homophobic or something? Political correctness reigns in this system.

This whole experience has contributed significantly to my move toward the political right. The ability of government to help is real, but so is its ability to hurt, and the abuse of power by do-gooders in government scares me precisely because those people never question themselves (even though their policies are often based not on justice but on covering their a** because of whatever current media scandal or legal case has them running scared). The obsession with individuals' right to parent is coming at the expense of what's right and good for children. In this case, I figure the kids will grow up to hate the US for taking away their mother. Honestly, I think the foster care system is breeding future terrorists.
 

Tonichelle

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Jun 27, 2003
While her case is sympathetic she entered the US illegally. It's not that hard to immigrate here legally so I don't get it *shrugs* I guess my feeling is - you can't have it both ways and then complain it isn't fair.

Though I'd say give her back her kids and then deport them all, they can come back in when they're adults if they want.
 
Joined
Mar 14, 2006
While her case is sympathetic she entered the US illegally. It's not that hard to immigrate here legally so I don't get it *shrugs* I guess my feeling is - you can't have it both ways and then complain it isn't fair.

Though I'd say give her back her kids and then deport them all, they can come back in when they're adults if they want.

Now see, to me, you're letting conservative legalism trumps conservative-religious emphasis on family. I'd put it the other way around. (And so does my church. Catholic Church is pro-family, pro-immigrant. Pro-law too but not when it does harm to the other two.)

ITA with you about the deportation though. If mom *has* to go, send kids too. But I'm told that will not happen.
 

Ptichka

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Jul 28, 2003
It's not that hard to immigrate here legally
Um, that is NOT true. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Frankly, the only reason my family was able to move here legally 20 years ago was because of the very powerful Jewish lobby in the US. We were lucky this way. Most people are not.

Toni, let me tell you a story of one friend I have who has been here illegally. At 24, she was left with a baby son, a sick mother, two disabled grandparents, and two minor sisters after her father died of cancer due to Chernobyl exposure and her husband left her without a penny for their son. This was in a small town in Russia, where the only job she could get after finishing college was literally not enough to buy decent food, and moving to a bigger city would be impossible because they wouldn't be able to afford rent. When her son got sick, they'd have to figure out if they could afford the medicine. Finally, she realized that her only path to save her family would be to go abroad. She found a way to enter this country as a student, knowing full well she wouldn't be attending any classes here, but bolt and work as babysitter/ house cleaner/ anything else. The money she sent home allowed her family to survive. BTW, she is now a legal green card holder, but that's only because the man she fell in love with and married here spent tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers to make it so. Perhaps in your book what she did was "wrong" - in mine it is not.

Though I'd say give her back her kids and then deport them all, they can come back in when they're adults if they want.
It's hard for me to evaluate this statement without knowing, to being with, what country the kids are from. However, if we are talking about very a unstable country, then the question comes of - does the US have a right to put minor Americans at such risk? Also, chances are this woman would face even worse poverty at home (at least in the US there is enough help that the children probably won't go hungry) - therefore, it's hypocritical to say she can't live with them in poverty here, but can do so abroad.
 
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Mar 14, 2006
What I want to know is, why is being poor with your family worse than being middle class without your family? And who says so? Why does government have the power to make that determination? There is a completely materialistic understanding of the human being at work here. People are simply bodies which need food and physical safety. The immaterial things like love, happiness, family ties can't be counted and so don't count. Humbug!

Ptichka, your story is much more eloquent than my rants. I'm glad your friend made it through. The plight of my young mother is similar, but she doesn't know any well-off American man who can save her. Meanwhile she has been here for years doing low-paid work that citizens don't want, and her children are citizens. Why is the US devoting so much effort to separating her and her kids? I can't even imagine the cost of all the courts, social workers and lawyers involved in her case. $10,000 a year for two or three years (probably a fifth or a tenth of the cost of prosecuting her case) would probably get her over this hump. She doesn't WANT to depend on anything but her own efforts.

Reminds me of the years when NYC spent 10 times more housing families in welfare hotels than it cost to subsidize their rent. On Principle!

I do believe the US has a right to limit immigration and enforce the limits. But there has to be a better way to do it.
 
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