Posted on 12/01/2008 7:48:21 AM PST by Oyarsa
CHONGQING, China - Nine-year-old Anna He stands quietly amid the chaos in her boarding school dorm on a Sunday night, a frenzy of little girls chattering in Chinese as they change the linens on rows of wooden beds.
Anna is an outsider here. Her parents are Chinese, but she cannot talk to her schoolmates because she grew up in America.
This small girl with watchful dark eyes was at the center of one of the longest custody battles in the U.S. in recent times, a high-profile seven-year dispute marked by racial and cultural undercurrents. On one side were the Bakers, a white family in suburban Memphis, Tenn. On the other were the Hes, immigrants scraping by with low-paying jobs before they returned to China.
The legal fight is finally over. And a new story has started for Anna.
Last year the Tennessee Supreme Court ordered her returned to the Chinese couple, and the family moved to China in February. Since then, Anna has lived in two cities and attended three schools. After her parents' marriage fell apart, she was sent to boarding school this fall and goes home on weekends.
"I really don't like living at school," Anna murmurs in English, buttoning and unbuttoning her sweater absently as the other girls flutter bed sheets in the air.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
No fostor family has any right to a child. Only a child who has been legally cleared for adoption is available.
Stops people from taking your own chidren. Whether they are happy or sad with you.
The people who really screwed this kid were the foster family who wouldnt let her go back to her bio parents so she could have her Chinese childhood. Selfish twerps.
No, I’d say it was our troglodytic state court who sent an Americanized child to a hostile, foreign, alien culture. Absolutely criminal. And, btw, this is the same evil court that ruled the brutal rape and murder of an elderly woman wasn’t heinous enough to warrant the death penalty.
No, I’d say it was our troglodytic state court who sent an Americanized child to a hostile, foreign, alien culture. Absolutely criminal. And, btw, this is the same evil court that ruled the brutal rape and murder of an elderly woman wasn’t heinous enough to warrant the death penalty
Parental rights are foundational. One may not like the outcome but they are the bottomline.
Nice try. That only applies in civilized nations, and certainly not where it causes enormous and crippling damage to the child in question. Doesn’t matter how she got here, it only mattered her current situation and what was best for the child and her rights. If she was an infant, long before she had time to be culturally acclimated, you may have an argument, but not here.
That was a judicial fiat abduction of an American child to an alien, hostile nation, for which she has no connection except genetics, a profound and cruel punishment for a child that only knows this country (and my state), one who is wholly Americanized. This was even a more obscene violation of rights than the Elian Gonzales example as I cited, which saw an extralegal & violent repatriation of a child to a terrorist dictator (since at least Elian was raised in that country and was not wholly alien).
Nice try. That only applies in civilized nations, and certainly not where it causes enormous and crippling damage to the child in question. Doesn’t matter how she got here, it only mattered her current situation and what was best for the child and her rights. If she was an infant, long before she had time to be culturally acclimated, you may have an argument, but not here.
That was a judicial fiat abduction of an American child to an alien, hostile nation, for which she has no connection except genetics, a profound and cruel punishment for a child that only knows this country (and my state), one who is wholly Americanized. This was even a more obscene violation of rights than the Elian Gonzales example as I cited, which saw an extralegal & violent repatriation of a child to a terrorist dictator (since at least Elian was raised in that country and was not wholly alien).
Hey guy. Lots of American kids get sent back to terrible parents every day. Look at our family court system.
I feel sorry for the child. but it still was a stupid thing for the foster family to do. They never had a legal leg to stand on and they did the baby a diservice by not returning it immediately when the birthparents requested the child back. This is not an issue of being civilized. This is an issue of case law.
Parents get their kids unless there is a compellling reason why THEY should not have the kid. Not whether there is a compelling reason why the kid should stay where it is.
Tell it to freeper “Chickensoup” (for the marxist soul?). S/he sides with the court.
Parents have rights to their children. Unless there is reason of unfitness to terminate these rights or unless the birthparents terminate them of their own free will, no court will step between the bond of parent and child.
This is the Opposite of Marxism where the government makes all the decisions. I did not realize that Freepers would be happy to role over years and years of case and common law and jepordize their own claims on their children.
You are abslolutly right, there was no forfiture of rights. I suspect that like many of these terrible and sad cases, the foster parents had an scummy attorney who said, We can outwait them and fight them and eventulaly they will pack it in and go back to China without their daughter.
One of the good things about this is that no one can take anyone else’s child away. Think about that. If you are poor, no one has the right to take your child away. the courts will defend your right to your child. This is a very prolife and pro family law.
Any chance that the people popularly deemed “the foster parents” will serve any jail time for their actions?
Any chance that the people popularly deemed “the foster parents” will serve any jail time for their actions?
I would guess that this was all civil court action and not something that would be addressed by the criminal system. Although I would imagine that the bio parents, now that they have won the case, could sue the foster parents for their behavior.
Of course. But they're not Shanghaied out of the country.
"I feel sorry for the child. but it still was a stupid thing for the foster family to do. They never had a legal leg to stand on and they did the baby a diservice by not returning it immediately when the birthparents requested the child back. This is not an issue of being civilized. This is an issue of case law."
Most kind you care for the child. It's in an alien country absolutely foreign to her upbringing. HER rights were totally trashed in an effort to "right" a wrong of long ago. Two evils do not make an appropriate redress. She did not deserve to be victimized in such a heinous manner. If her birth parents cared about her, they'd wish her to remain in her home. Certainly arrangements could've been made and facilitated by the courts for their immigration to this country so they could be united HERE.
"Parents get their kids unless there is a compellling reason why THEY should not have the kid. Not whether there is a compelling reason why the kid should stay where it is."
There was a compelling reason. She was a complete alien to the culture for which they were seeking to return her to, for which her rights aren't recognized. As I said, there's a big difference between an infant vs. a child old enough to be caused enormous damage by such an unconscionable repatriation.
And where does the girl go for redress ?
Perhaps she will pursue criminal and/or civil charges as an adult, against the people who tried to kidnap her from her parents, and destroyed her life?
The only folks who destroyed her life, willfully, are the courts and her birthparents keeping her in an alien country. Does it excuse the foster parents ? No. But they Americanized her, and you don’t just send off a child to an alien culture as a result. If her birth parents cared about her well-being, they’d have her sent back to our country. Unpleasant, yes, but it’s not about them, it’s about her.
An appalling issue, too. Depends upon the age. I’m basically in favor of deportation in nearly all instances, but a child that has already been thoroughly Americanized, it’s highly difficult to then send them off to the parents’ home country when they are absolutely alien to it. I’d probably set the bar at about the age of 5.
You have that right.
That your stated opinion appears to be based on missguided, ignorant, erroneous emotional knee jerk reactions to a real situation...
I have the right to deem your “opinion” as useless and willfully ignorant.
Facts of the case: American child ordered (by the same state court that ruled rape and murder of an elderly woman not heinous enough to warrant the death penalty) returned to Communist totalitarian country for which she has no rights, no knowledge of the language, no familiarization of the culture, to biological parents that she doesn’t know (and whom apparently could care less about her fate beyond having her living in a backwards, alien sewer). A crass and obscene miscarriage of justice and cruel abuse of a child and her rights.
Nope, I’ve got it quite clearly. I’m very shocked some FReepers have no problem with a child being sent to a gulag, no questions asked. Exactly the same with Elian. Perhaps they should have their children similarly seized from them, because they certainly aren’t fit to raise them with that kind of shocking lack of judgment, sanity, and conscience, madam.
Did you read the article? If it states the facts correctly (it is MSNBC, after all), the Bakers SOUGHT to adopt, but never adopted Anna. She was a foster child; the natural parents signed over custody to get health insurance for her, but never allowed an adoption.
While the natural parents may not have offered the best option for Anna’s life, the Bakers battling through the courts for seven years, further acclimating her to America, its culture and language, was not in Anna’s best interest.
These are always gut-wrenching cases, but absent a legal adoption, I don’t know how the courts could have ruled otherwise.
Sorry, but I’m concerning myself with the child here. If this were the case of an infant or toddler, it would be different, but not in this instance. To say the child’s best interests were not served by keeping her in the U.S. vs. China is, well, patently absurd. I have contempt for our wonderful state court here, as usual, and similar disgust for the natural parents that would not want their child living in the BEST possible place for her at this juncture even if that meant being apart (ever hear of sacrificing for your kid ? It is, again, amazing what people will justify in the name of “parental rights” if that means moving a child from a safe, nurturing, familiar or privileged environment to an alien or unsafe one. Any parent that would put THEIR selfish desires ahead of their children do not deserve to be parents).
Did the court even ASK her what she wanted or preferred ? The only logical and humane decision the court could’ve made was to allow her to stay here and arrange for the immigration of the parents here. If they refused that, or cited, say, language and cultural issues for not doing so, well, welcome to that poor little girl’s world now.
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