Word: courtelis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...government take a woman's baby from her because she doesn't speak English? That's the latest question to arise in the hothouse debate over illegal immigration, as an undocumented woman from impoverished rural Mexico - who speaks only an obscure indigenous language - fights in a Mississippi court to regain custody of her infant daughter...
...taken from Baltazar Cruz, who now faces deportation. In May, a Jackson County judge gave the infant to a couple (it is unclear if for foster care or adoptive purposes) who reportedly live in Ocean Springs. Baltazar Cruz is challenging the ruling in Jackson County Youth Court and hopes that if she is deported she can at least take Rubí back to Mexico with her. (She has not disclosed the father's identity.) (See the best and worst moms ever...
...Cruz. It wouldn't be the first time this has happened in the U.S. In 2004 a Tennessee judge ordered into foster care the child of a Mexican migrant mother who spoke only an indigenous tongue. (Another judge later returned the child to her family.) Last year, a California court took custody of the U.S.-born twin babies of another indigenous, undocumented migrant from Oaxaca. After she was deported, the Oaxaca state government's Institute for Attention to Migrants fought successfully to have the twins repatriated to her in Mexico this summer. In such cases, says the SPLC's Bauer...
...next court hearing in Baltazar Cruz's case is slated for November. In the meantime, Mexican consular officials in the U.S. struck an agreement with Mississippi authorities this month to ensure that Mexico will be informed when nationals like Baltazar Cruz become embroiled in cases like this. Says Daniel Hernandez Joseph, director of Mexico's program for protection of citizens abroad: "The main concern of the Mexican government is not to separate immigrant families." Baltazar Cruz now has to persuade Mississippi judges that it should be their concern...
...judging them on their policies," he says. In February, the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico signed a statement calling for decriminalization of several narcotics. "Current drug-repression policies are firmly rooted in prejudices, fears and ideological visions," it said. (On Aug. 25, the Argentine supreme court essentially legalized the private use of small amounts of marijuana...