More LaRaza activity:

Valley Latino leaders demand dependency-court reforms
By Karen de Sá
Mercury News
Article Launched: 03/01/2008 01:54:13 AM PST



Latino leaders of the South Bay on Friday decried the poor handling of dependency court cases, and demanded improvement of the system designed to protect children from abuse and neglect.

La Raza Roundtable Chairman Victor Garza said many of his members wanted immediate action to correct the problems of the overloaded system identified in the February Mercury News series, "Broken Families, Broken Courts."

"The Latino community is extremely concerned with the allegations made about the lack of proper representation for the parents and lack of voice for the children in court proceedings," Garza told a small gathering in the Santa Clara County administration building. "Now, it is clear that one of the principal reasons for this over-representation in the child welfare system is the lack of equal protection for the parents."

Supervising Dependency Court Judge Katherine Lucero, responding to Garza's announcement, said the fact that local Latino and African-American families are disproportionately impacted by the child welfare system is "an issue that is very, very important to me personally and to the court."

Garza, whose organization has about 800 members, said, "The contention that Santa Clara County has a model child welfare system has been defended by the court leadership, but the facts are refuted," Garza said. "Yes, the county stands out, but for the wrong reasons."

He and other La Raza Roundtable leaders said they planned public forums in coming months to focus attention on the problem. San Jose Vice Mayor David Cortese, a La Raza Roundtable member, said "in general, the system is broken in terms of the competency with which it deals with dependency cases." The first step in solving the problem, he said, "is getting the people who've been hurt the most and letting them speak out. But we're going to go well beyond that."



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Contact Karen de Sá at kdesa@mercurynews.com or (40 920-5781.



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Thanks for the morning laugh. Tell LaRaza the citizens have been screaming for deportation of illegals for a long time and wanting immediate action.


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