New Mexico’s child welfare agency says it would be impossible to bring a 15-year-old foster child back from Mexico, where he was sent alone over a bridge to reunite with his estranged mother.
The New Mexico Department of Justice, in a July 28 request for a temporary restraining order, asked a state district judge to order the return.
In its reply, filed late last month, the Children Youth and Families Department said that would be “absurd and impossible,” and urges the court to deny the petition. It notes New Mexico’s First Judicial District Court does not have jurisdiction to compel a foreign government to return the boy, and defends CYFD’s decision to reunite him with his mother.
“CYFD’s decision to reunify the family was appropriate and required by law. Despite this correct application of our public policy, Plaintiff seeks an Order that would reach across an international border to disrupt a family where there is still no allegation or finding of abuse or neglect,” the agency wrote in the filing.
Justice Department spokesperson Lauren Rodriguez fired back at CYFD’s response in a Friday evening email, writing, “The absurdity is not in demanding better for our state’s children; it is in repeatedly disregarding their best interest.”
“The New Mexico Department of Justice will never shy away from fighting for our most vulnerable children, even against the department designed to protect them,” she wrote.
The state Justice Department filed the lawsuit July 28 claiming earlier that month, CYFD staff had dropped the boy off at the border and told him to cross into Mexico alone, despite being a U.S. citizen and having had little to no contact with his mother for years.
The boy instead cut back into the U.S., and spent several days in a youth homeless shelter in Texas before eventually being escorted into Mexico and into his mother’s custody, the Justice Department’s lawsuit says.
The boy has tried to run away at least once since the reunion, but was intercepted and forced to return by Mexican authorities, the lawsuit says. And CYFD — which said it conducted two virtual home visits with the boy’s mother before releasing him — has acknowledged substantiating one allegation of abuse or neglect by the mother against the boy in 2019.
“The State of New Mexico cannot claim to protect children while abandoning one of its own at an international border,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez wrote in a news release published when the lawsuit was filed. “This case is about more than one child. It is about whether the agency entrusted with protecting our most vulnerable children is following the law, honoring constitutional rights, and putting the safety of children above bureaucratic expediency.”
A judge has yet to rule. It is unclear what the Justice Department’s plan is if it prevails and the judge issues a temporary restraining order requiring the boy be returned to New Mexico. The agency did not respond to emailed questions about where he would be placed and how bringing him home might work.
CYFD spokesperson Jake Thompson wrote in an email the boy is still in Mexico with his mother, and the agency spoke with her Aug. 12.
“She reported that child was safe and doing well, along with his siblings,” he wrote. “In addition, the Mexican Consulate’s office told CYFD that when they spoke with the mother on August 21, they provided information she’d requested and that she was in good spirits, and they pledged to remain in contact with her.”
Thompson declined, however, to comment further on what bringing the boy back to New Mexico might look like, writing that CYFD “looks forward to addressing the issues raised in this query and others in court and cannot comment further because they involve pending litigation.”
Esteban Candelaria is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. He covers child welfare and the state Children, Youth and Families Department. Learn more about Report for America at reportforamerica.org.
