Faked papers hinder Guatemala adoptions
GUATEMALA CITY — Luciany Ball’s adoption file says she was born 14 months ago by cesarean section to a single mother who gave her up so she could be raised by a loving family in a six-bedroom Indiana farmhouse.
But now some of the documents appear to be fraudulent, part of a slew of irregularities at the agency handling Luciany’s adoption that have left dozens of babies at risk of being taken from their anguished American adoptive parents. The probe also casts a cloud of uncertainty over some 2,900 pending U.S. adoptions.
Prosecutors describe their probe of Casa Quivira — considered Guatemala’s best adoption agency — as their first serious attempt to investigate a $100 million industry that has made tiny Guatemala, population 12.7 million, the largest international source of American babies after China.
The system has delivered 29,400 Guatemalan children into U.S. homes since 1990 — so many that one in every 100 Guatemalan babies born each year was growing up in an American home.
But after a months-long investigation that began with the seizure of 46 babies from Casa Quivira last August, prosecutors say they found fraud cloaking the true identities of at least nine children and that many biological mothers couldn’t be found at all.
The fraud points to much deeper problems with the flawed adoption system that Guatemala replaced in January, and casts a cloud of uncertainty over the backgrounds of thousands of children now growing up in America.
After intense lobbying by U.S. parents, most of the 2,900 pending U.S. adoptions will likely go forward, partly because Guatemala lacks the resources to fully investigate them. Parents of the Casa Quivira babies, however, are stuck in the very nightmare they tried to avoid by spending at least $30,000 per child for hassle-free adoptions.
“I certainly wouldn’t want to give Luciany back,” said Mary Ball, the child’s adoptive mother, her eyes welling up. “She’s our family. She’s our daughter.”
Prosecutors say the problems at Casa Quivira include illegal payments to at least one biological mother, stolen identities — including that of a child stillborn 22 years ago — and a mentally ill biological mother who was incapable of giving consent.
A Guatemalan judge said he would announce today whether to pursue a trial against Casa Quivira’s attorney and notary.
Prosecutors also have obtained an arrest warrant against the agency’s American owner, and they want fresh DNA tests for all the babies, even those whose paperwork is apparently in order.
Luciany’s story reveals some of the complexities of adoptions in the poverty-ridden country. Luciany was born on Jan. 4, 2007. Her biological mother shows up twice in her village’s civil registry, with the same picture and fingerprints but different names. One says she is Maria Natividad Hernandez, a married woman. The other — created the same day she gave birth to Luciany — identifies her as Orbelina Davila Paz, a single woman.
Prosecutors suspect she got a false I.D. so she and her husband could give the baby up without going before a judge.
Mary Ball, 39, chose Casa Quivira because her best friend had adopted through the same agency. But Luciany’s fate is now uncertain.
If fraud is proven, whatever the reason, Guatemala would invalidate the adoption and try to recover the child, even one who’s already a U.S. citizen.
Custody disputes with Guatemala for babies in the U.S. would land before a judge in the adoptive family’s hometown, according to the U.S. Embassy.
But if document fraud is discovered for babies still in Guatemala, their cases will have to start all over again.
Mary Ball is ready to fight for Luciany. “I couldn’t give up without a fight because I love Luciany,” she said. “I feel she’s going to have a great life with us.”
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