N.C. Judge: Return US-born children to deported dad

Originally published Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 12:16 PM

NC Judge: Return US-born children to deported dad

A North Carolina judge has restored custody of three U.S.-born children to their deported Mexican father.
The Associated Press

SPARTA, N.C. —

A North Carolina judge has restored custody of three U.S.-born children to their deported Mexican father.

Social services officials in Alleghany County had sought to terminate the parental rights of Felipe Montes, who crossed the border illegally in 2003 to work on Christmas tree farms. He later married a U.S. citizen and the couple had three sons.

Federal immigration officials arrested Montes in 2010 after he was repeatedly ticketed for driving without a license, which he was barred from getting under state law. He was sent back to Mexico and the boys were placed in foster care after social services officials determined his wife was unable to properly care for them on her own.

Tuesday's ruling could clear the way for the children to live with their father in Mexico.

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2019774061_apusimmigrantslostchildren.html

Good , 3 more we don't have to pay for

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hawk

Good , 3 more we don't have to pay for

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They'll be back as adults and will then apply to have their father join them. Remember, they are U.S. citizens.

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http://www.alipac.us/f12/nc-deported...s-kids-267937/

Deported Father’s Painful Legal Case Ends As Congress Debates Immigration Changes

http://colorlines.com/assets_c/2012/...xauto-6245.jpg
Felipe Montes and his children. (Photo provided by Felipe Montes.)

by Seth Freed Wessler, Tuesday, February 19 2013, 2:15 PM EST

A deported father’s long, painful legal fight to regain custody of his children came to end today in a small North Carolina county courthouse. Felipe Montes, who lost his three U.S.-citizens sons when he was deported to Mexico in December 2010, stepped out of the court on this cold, rainy Appalachian day with his rights restored. He will now be allowed to take his children with him to Mexico.

“I am happy this part is over, finally,” Montes said. “Now I have to make arrangements to go. But I’m ready to leave with my boys.”

Felipe Montes’ case gained national attention last year after Colorlines.com broke the storyand the Latino advocacy group Presente.org launched a petition calling on Allegheny County, North Carolina to reunite the boys with their father. The case has become emblematic of the rippling consequences of deporting parents, an issue that’s gained prominence in ongoing national debates about immigration reform.

“I grant legal and physical custody to the father, Felipe Montes,” Judge Michael Duncan said. “Good luck,” he added, before ending the short hearing.

When Montes was deported following a series of driving violations, he left behind his wife, Marie Montes, to care for their two children. The couple’s third baby was born while Montes was locked inside a Georgia immigration detention facility.

Marie Montes, who has long struggled with drug addiction and psychiatric disability, could not care for the children alone, and they were placed with foster parents who hoped to adopt the boys.

But Felipe Montes protested, asking that the boys be placed with him. Until August, that appeared unlikely, but the case changed direction when federal immigration authorities, under pressure from the Mexican consulate, granted Montes a rare temporary immigration parole so he could attend the parental rights hearings.

“When he came back, he was no longer this man in a far away place but a father right in front of them,” said Donna Shumate, Montes’ local court appointed attorney.

In November, Judge Michael Duncan granted Montes custody of his children on a trail basis, and for the last three months, the father has lived with the boys in the basement apartment paid for by the Mexican Consulate for the Carolinas.

Today, Judge said that the child welfare case would be formally closed; that Isaiah, 5, Adrian, 3, and Angel 2 will be fully returned to their father. Judge Duncan said that because the trial placement revealed no concerns with Montes’ ability to care for his kids, the country lacks a legal basis to retain custody of the children.

The child welfare department seemed to anticipate this and told the judge this morning that they recommend the children be reunified with their father.

Montes’ federal immigration parole requires that he leave the country before March 23rd. Montes plans to live with family in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Whether Marie Montes, who is a U.S. citizen, will join the family is unclear. The mother is currently incarcerated for parole violations and is pregnant with another child. The family has not decided where the new baby will live.

Cases like the Montes’ have become increasingly common in recent years as the federal government deports historic numbers of people from the interior of the United States. In December, Colorlines reported that between July 2010 and September 2012, over 205,000 parents of United States citizens were deported from the country. Some of these parents lose custody of their kids entirely. In November 2011, a Colorlines investigation revealed an estimated 5,000 children were stuck in foster care because whose parents were deported.

These separations have migrated toward the center of fledgling congressional debates over immigration. Earlier this month Representative Karen Bass, a California Democrat raised the issue during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration reform.

“Because of the deportations that have taken place over the last few years there are anywhere to [sic] 5 to 6000 children who have been placed in foster care because their parents have been deported—the children were citizens,” Rep. Bass said, referencing the 2011 Colorlines.com investigation.

In similar fashion, during a Senate Judiciary Hearing last week, Senator Al Franken, a Democrat, cited data from the December Colorlines.com story. He then asked Secretary Napolitano to explain her agency’s practices when deporting parents. Napolitano said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents try to ensure children have other family members to care for children. But she added, “Where the parents need to be deported…in some cases we have to call in whatever the social agency involved in the state appears to be.”

Colorlines.com requested clarification on the policy from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the agency did not respond in time for publication.

Senator Franken said during the hearing that he plans to introduce legislation to protect families from separation during the deportation process. States have started to move to protect families from going through what the Montes family has. In 2012, California governor Jerry Brown signed the a set of bills to address the needs of parents facing deportation whose children are in foster care. The laws were the first of their kind in the country, and legislators in several other states are considering copying California’s lead.

North Carolina’s legislature is not one of these states, but for Felipe Montes, these changes would have come too late anyway. Though his children have now been returned to him, the father has been separated from his sons for two years and must now leave the country to raise the boys.

http://colorlines.com/archives/2013/02/a_deported_fathers_long_painful.html

Sparta man who won custody of his three children loses fight to stay in United States

Posted: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 4:08 pm | Updated: 8:39 pm, Fri Mar 22, 2013.
Michael Hewlett/Winston-Salem Journal

Felipe Bautista Montes, a deported Sparta man who was awarded custody of his three sons last month in Alleghany District Court, boarded a plane back to Mexico Friday morning after losing a fight to stay in the United States.

Montes was allowed back in the country on a special kind of visa called humanitarian parole. That visa expires Saturday and Montes had been ordered to leave the country Friday. Presente.org, an online advocacy group for Latinos, had been working to either get a stay of removal on Montes’ deportation or extend his humanitarian parole.

Kyle de Beausset, senior campaigner for Presente.org, said the organization was unable to do either and that Montes boarded a plane out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport Friday morning. He said he believed Montes’ three children were also on the plane. He could not be reached later Friday, but according to Colorlines.com, a daily online news site focused on racial and immigration issues, Montes left with his three sons. Colorlines.com has been covering the case of Montes.

Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, said in a news release that he was outraged that Felipe Montes was forced to leave.

“This is indicative of a devastating systemic problem—how many U.S. citizen children are forced to leave the only country they know as home or be placed in foster care away from their parents?” Carmona said in a news release. “It is unacceptable that as lawmakers are discussing ‘immigration reform’ and ‘family unity’ they are allowing deportations like this to continue taking place.”

Montes, 33, was deported in 2010 after he was cited for a series of traffic violations. Two months later, his wife, Marie Montes, a U.S. citizen, lost custody of their three children – Angel, 2; Adrian, 3; and Isaiah, 5. The Alleghany Department of Social Services determined she was an unfit mother and has sought to terminate her parental rights.

Montes fought to gain custody of his three children, traveling back to the United States on the humanitarian parole to attend hearings in Alleghany District Court. Alleghany County social-services workers raised concerns about the home where the children would stay in Mexico, saying it had no running water. And Louise Paglen, the attorney representing the interests of the children, alleged in court that Montes had physically abused and neglected the children.

Judge Michael Duncan of Alleghany District Court rejected those arguments and awarded temporary custody to Montes in November and permanent custody last month.

Mark Atkinson, a Winston-Salem immigration lawyer, said Montes faced a hurdle getting a stay of removal because he had already been deported and was only in the country on a rare type of visa.

Federal immigration officials have been exercising prosecutorial discretion on a case-by-case basis, following a directive in a June 17, 2011, letter from ICE director John Morton. President Barack Obama has publicly supported that directive.

But Atkinson said Montes might not qualify under prosecutorial discretion because of his deportation. He would have to get his deportation case reopened, which also would prove difficult, Atkinson said.

mhewlett@wsjournal.com

(336) 727-7326

Sparta man who won custody of his three children loses fight to stay in United States - Winston-Salem Journal: Local News