He Grew Up Thinking He Was American — Until He Was Deported. The intercept

MAURICIO OVIEDO SOTO was 6 years old when a judge in a Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, circuit court officially recognized his adoption. With the stroke of a pen, he became Mauricio Cappelli, taking the surname of his new American father.

Nearly 32 years later, on March 12, 2018, Cappelli stepped off a commercial flight at Juan Santamaría International Airport in San José, Costa Rica, in the country of his birth. He was still processing the last 24 hours: Early that morning, officers entered his holding cell in a South Texas immigration detention center and told him he would be deported that day to his native country for the second time in his life.

“They came in to my cell and told me to quickly pack up my stuff,” Cappelli recently told The Intercept in a phone call from Costa Rica. “I boarded my flight still in my jail clothes.” [continua]

Spanish Doctor Stands Trial Over Franco-era ‘Stolen Babies’. ICTJ. The Guardian

Activists estimate that tens of thousands of babies were stolen until a law regulating adoption was passed in 1987.

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Spanish doctor stands trial over Franco-era 'stolen babies'

The child exchange. Inside America’s underground market for adopt children. Reuters

When a Liberian girl proves too much for her parents, they advertise her online and give her to a couple they’ve never met. Days later, she goes missing. [part 1]

Adoção: do abandono à deportação

Em que momento nos tornamos aquilo que acreditamos ser?

“Porque eu sou do tamanho do que vejo. E não, do tamanho da minha altura…” Alberto Caieiro, O Guardador de Rebanhos

Em abril/2015, Maggie Jones publicou matéria no New York Times sobre o caso de Adam Crapser, que seria deportado dos EUA para a Coreia do Sul.

Maggie Jones nos mostra quem é Adam Crapser e sua família: 39 anos, 3 filhos e uma mulher grávida.

A história de Adam Crapser começa na Coreia do Sul, quando ele, então Shin Song Hyuk, com três anos de idade, foi enviado com sua irmã para uma instituição de acolhimento a 3h de Seul. Alguns meses depois, os dois partiam para os EUA, adotados.

A vida na primeira família teria sido marcada por castigos. Depois de seis anos de convivência, o casal resolve não mais permanecer com Hyuk, mas apenas com a irmã dele.

Hyuk circula por alguns serviços de assistência até ser acolhido por uma nova família, que já contava com filhos adotivos. Contudo, a experiência nessa família não teria sido mais tranquila do que na anterior.

Com 16 anos, depois de uma briga com sua mãe, Hyuk, agora, de direito, Crapser, é expulso de casa. Perambula pelas ruas, faz sua vida por si mesmo. Tempos depois retorna ao antigo lar para resgatar artefatos que havia trazido da Coreia do Sul: um tênis e uma Bíblia. Nessa incursão ele quebra uma janela da casa para entrar ali. Ele é preso por conta disso e permanece 25 meses na prisão. Depois, uma infinidade de episódios de conflitos com a lei que o enredam cada vez mais.

Ao tentar obter um emprego de tempo integral, descobre que não é cidadão americano. Os pais não pleitearam sua cidadania, em complemento à adoção, tal como era necessário antes de 2000, quando foi promulgado o Child Citzenship Act, que beneficiou adotados por cidadãos americanos a partir dali e aqueles que tivessem até 18 anos de idade naquele momento.

Em 2012, depois de muitos contratempos com os Crapser, o jovem finalmente consegue obter os documentos originais relativos à adoção e solicita um Green Card. Contudo, com seu passado de problemas com a lei, o Department of Homeland Security ao realizar as investigações usuais nesses casos, verifica que as condenações que pesavam sobre Crapser faziam dele um ‘deportável’.

Maggie Jones menciona que há na história recente dos EUA pelo menos outros 10 casos de sul-coreanos que passaram pela mesma experiência bizarra que Crapser. Na matéria é ainda mencionado o caso do brasileiro João Herbert.

Grupos de pressão tentam reverter a deportação de Crapser, que completou 40 anos de idade em abril de 2015: 37 anos longe da Coreia do Sul.

 

 Leia o post completo em Cartas do Litoral.

Lion

The Adoption Paradox

Kids who are adopted have richer, more involved parents. They also have more behavior and attention problems. Why? [Continua – The Atlantic]

Neglected and abused children are not being best served by the present system. The Guardian

Many of the 70,000 children in the care of the state will have experienced abject neglect or abuse at the hands of parents unable or unwilling to provide the care and nurture that comes naturally to most families. While adoption will only be appropriate for a minority of these children, it can be transformative, offering them the best chance of growing up in a stable, permanent, loving home.

The 12% drop in the number of children being adopted in the year ending in March is therefore deeply concerning. Experts believe this will be followed by even steeper falls, as applications for placement orders, the first step in the adoption process, have fallen even more markedly.

This is an area fraught with sensitivity: the decision to remove a child from their parents’ care is one of the utmost gravity. Yet there is a great deal of evidence that in recent decades, courts have been too reluctant to make this call, at huge cost to children’s lives. Martin Narey, the former chief executive of Barnardo’s, observed in his 2011 investigation into the adoption system: “Frequently, a child is living in observed neglect for many months, years sometimes, before first being removed to care.” […]

The Observer view on adoption

Baby adoption practices of past demand inquiry, say law firms. The Guardian

Pressure is mounting for a public inquiry into the adoption of hundreds of thousands of babies born to unmarried women over a 30-year period amid claims from some mothers who say they were coerced into handing over their children.

A letter will be sent to the home secretary, Amber Rudd, next week from solicitors at two eminent law firms calling on her to convene a public inquiry into historical adoption practices in the UK. The solicitors say an inquiry would uncover the truth about the practices – stretching over three decades after the end of the second world war – and hold agencies to account.

Meanwhile more women have come forward to tell their stories of being pressured into having their babies adopted.

[…] About half a million babies, most born to unmarried women, were adopted in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when the Catholic church, Church of England and the Salvation Army ran “mother and baby homes” and adoption agencies in the UK. Adoption reached a peak in 1968, when more than 16,000 babies born to unmarried mothers were handed over to new families.

Baby adoption practices of past demand inquiry, say law firms

 

Australia is decades behind on adoption. The Guardian

[…] In reality, many ordinary Australians spend years fighting bureaucracy and making sacrifices to earn the right to take care of traumatised children nobody else wants.

[…] Australia has moved in the opposite direction. The number of children in foster care has skyrocketed – there are now 43,000 kids living without a permanent home. Many spend their entire childhood being handballed from one placement to another before transiting into juvenile justice. Yet there were fewer than 100 foster care adoptions last year and just seven outside NSW.

Adoption is not viable for all foster kids. Some have been so damaged by constant moves and re-abuse in care, they’re now unable to settle in a family home. Others remain emotionally attached to birth families and could be returned if it weren’t for our woeful underfunding of social support services.

[…] Australia’s pre-1980s history of forced adoptions – where Aboriginal and single women were coerced into handing over their babies and denied future contact – helps explain today’s status quo. NSW has been the only state to pursue pro-adoption reforms and this led to cries that government is once again trying to steal children.

Australia is decades behind on adoption and it’s time to put children’s interests first

82 anos depois, mãe encontra filha entregue à adoção de modo forçado

Mãe e filha separadas em 1933 tiveram um encontro improvável que celebrou uma busca de décadas. Lena Pierce, 96, e sua filha, Betty Morrell, 82, encontraram-se mais de 80 anos depois da segunda ter sido disponibilizada para a adoção de modo forçado.

Pierce tinha 14 anos de idade e seis meses depois do nascimento de Eva May, como sua filha era chamada à época, o poder público entendeu que ela seria jovem demais para cuidar da filha, determinando a colocação da criança em família substituta.

Leia a matéria completa:

82 years later, mother meets daughter she was forced to give up for adoption