According to Guatemalan authorities DNA tests showed that a baby up for adoption by a U.S. couple had been stolen from its mother. National Adoption Council (NAC) officials said that a fake birth certificate and a false DNA test were used in the illegal adoption of Esther Sulamita.Sulamita had been kidnapped by armed men in March 2007 from her mother, Ana Escobar. By a stroke of luck Escobar found her daughter at an NAC office two months ago. Escobar convinced officials to take new DNA tests and the results were announced publicly today.
Since May there has been a moratorium on all potential adoptions on Guatemala as officials try to fix a corrupt system. Guatemala is the second largest source of children adopted in the U.S. (behind China) with over 4,700 Guatemalan children adopted in 2007.
The hiatus has worried hundreds of prospective parents in the U.S. and the adoption system has been a roadblock to the attempted citizenship of one girl:
(Allie Mulvihill) may be forced to leave the country because U.S. immigration officials are questioning the legitimacy of the Guatemala native's adoption by her parents, Lori and Scott Mulvihill, in 1994.
When the Mulvihills brought their then 2-year-old daughter to their home in Allentown, Pennsylvania, they believed she would be granted citizenship.
But U.S. immigration officials questioned whether the woman who gave Allie up for adoption in Guatemala was really her biological mother…. and the dispute over her adoption has become a roadblock on Allie's path to citizenship…
The fact that she cannot get her immigration status resolved means the fear of deportation continues to loom.
Image- ABC News (“Seven Guatemalan children sit in bouncing chairs at the Casa Quivira children's home in Antigua, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Guatemala City in this Aug. 14, 2007 file photo.(Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)”)
Sources- BBC News, International Herald Tribune, The Latin Americanist, CNN
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