Heart-wrenching fight for immigrant's son

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: CNN

His biological mother calls him Carlitos, but he's Jamison to the couple that adopted him.

The two sides are locked in a heart-wrenching legal fight over custody of the 4-year-old boy. He's caught between federal immigration law and state adoption law -- and between two families. But the Missouri Supreme Court will soon decide his fate.

The court could keep him with his adoptive parents, Seth and Melinda Moser, a couple from Carthage, Missouri who have raised the boy since shortly before his second birthday. The Mosers say they played by the rules in adopting the boy and provide him with a loving, stable home.

Or the court could return the boy to his biological mother, a native of Guatemala who says she never agreed to her son's adoption. She was separated from her son when he was about six months old, after federal agents imprisoned her as an illegal immigrant who used a stolen Social Security number to work at a poultry processing plant.

Seth Moser says he and his wife are the only parents the boy has ever known. They heard him speak his first words, watched him take his first steps.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/17/missouri.immigrant.child.case/

[stevenelijah]

1. what an awful story...

[AlphaCentauri]

2. Sadly separating children from their parents is common practice

On the morning of March 6, 2007, the New Bedford, MA community was devastated by one of the nation's largest immigration raids. By the end of the day, 361 workers of the Michael Bianco factory were facing deportation, and all but a small number were detained and separated from their families. An estimated 100-200 children were separated from their parents.

One Year Later: Where is my family?

http://www.miracoalition.org/home/new-bedford-immigration-raids