Posted on 09/27/2007 2:56:09 PM PDT by Baladas
AP) The father of a 5-year-old Cuban girl at the center of an international custody battle did not abandon or neglect her, so he should get her back, a judge ruled Thursday.
Circuit Judge Jeri B. Cohen said she would not immediately return the girl to her father, Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, who wants to take her back to Cuba.
The girl went into foster care after her mother brought her to the U.S. in 2005 and then attempted suicide days before Christmas. She has been living with foster parents in Miami for the past 18 months and they want to keep the girl here.
The Florida Department of Children & Families said Izquierdo abandoned the girl and officials want the girl to stay with her foster parents, Joe and Maria Cubas, a wealthy Cuban-American couple. The state's attorneys said removing the girl after such a long time would cause her serious emotional trauma.
Cohen said she would hold a follow-up hearing to listen to the state's arguments, but urged the department to "take the blindfold off and see the forest for the trees."
Izquierdo has denied that he abandoned his daughter and has professed his desire to return with her to Cuba.
"The court cannot deny Izquierdo custody of his child," Cohen said.
The father, foster parents and mother were all in court as the judge read her 47-page ruling over several hours. The judge said Izquierdo's efforts to regain his daughter once she was put in foster care "were not marginal for a man of his circumstances."
"He has diligently participated in what must seem to him a mysterious and daunting legal process. While geographically, Cuba is only 90 miles from the United States shores, the two countries are philosophically and politically worlds apart," Cohen said.
can someone find out if this Judge is a Clintonista thug?
I wonder how they know the father abandoned the child? The story doesn’t provide any information on that.
The problem is that most mental health professionals do not think that socialism is a mental illness. They do not include homosexuality and hoplaphobia as mental illnesses either.
Where’s the pic of the “Not this sh!t again” guy?
WHILE I have empathy for the foster parents...parental rights supercede all.
I've gotta agree with you. (And don't start yelling Elian until they send in the ninja guys with the mp5's.) 2005 isn't that long ago and unless they can show the Dad is unfit both he and his son have a right to be with each other - regardless of what the son may think now. He needs to be with his dad.
paging hillary.
That being said, from the father's stand point, isn't it bad enough that he's got to run out the string in Cuba? We're gonna deny him his daughter too, because of something that's no fault of his own?
And this little girl will go to live with a stranger, and will probably never see her brother again.
Sad.
Wanting to return to live in Cuba, and to take a child there, is overwhelming evidence of mental incompetence, or at the least intent of reckless endangerment. Either should prove to any reasonable judge that the father is not capable of safely caring for his child. It's no different than if I were to demand a court give me back my child after I express my intent to take him to live in a plague zone.
On top of that, the little girls natural mother wants her daughter given to her natural father.
Not impressed, the natural mother is so unstable herself that she lost custody after trying to off herself again.
This is the judge -
http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1394780_1?noconfirm=0&channel=CCC
Don’t forget, this IS a Florida court.
Most mental health professionals are themselves mentally ill. Not seeing that liberalism (AKA socialism), sexual deviancy and the considering of inanimate objects as intrinsically evil (ie. hoplaphobia) as mental illnesses is IMO a long step from being in touch with reality. If Psychiatry were anywhere near a real science, any one of those things would be signs of mental incompetence.
I didn't initially notice that he had abandoned the child (I don't doubt that). That, of course, changes everything.
True, who can forget Elian. I guess my wording was off - I meant a new twist on the Elian case, in regard to the parent defecting, her mother, still being alive and in America (unlike Elian), just unable to care for her at this time. That’s a new step for them, new ground. Jimmah’s smilin now.
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