Social dilemma: Jailed Collier mom faces deportation, separation from three U.S-born kids
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Magdalena Battles feeds her six month old foster daughter in the living room of her home.
IMMOKALEE — Maria Lopez was slow to answer the afternoon Collier deputies came knocking at her door in June.
An anonymous call brought law enforcement officers to the light pink, pre-fabricated home on Immokalee's west side. There were three unattended children, the caller said. Two were eating salt off the table.
Lopez was under the influence of alcohol. She admitted to investigators that she began drinking around 9 a.m., and had at least six beers by the time they arrived at 5 p.m.
Several cans were found in a diaper bag hanging on the wall of the room Lopez shared with the children. Others were on the floor near her 5-week-old baby.
The home was dirty, and so were the faces of the two older children, ages 1 and 2, deputies noted in reports. There were clothes and trash on the floor, a cockroach on the wall, and a pair of scissors and a bottle of bleach within reach of little hands.
Lopez's 19-month-old son had a heavy rash and open wounds beneath his full diaper, according to sheriff's reports. The children nonetheless "appeared healthy," one deputy wrote.
Lopez, 42, was arrested on charges of child neglect without great bodily harm.
The family was dismantled. By day's end, each child was in a separate foster home.
* * * * *
Around midnight on June 22, a child welfare worker knocked on a South Florida couple's door and handed Lopez's infant daughter and a car seat to Magdalena Battles.
The baby was so small, the Battles nicknamed her Lil' Bit.
"She was really thin, emaciated-looking. She had dark circles around her eyes," recalled Justin Battles, 42. "Her interaction was not good. When you would bend down to kiss her on the cheek, she would just stare off into space."
Now, she's plump at six months old. She gurgles, blows bubbles and jingles the bells on her silver bracelet. She follows them with her eyes.
Even with the unpredictability of foster parenthood, the Battles are far from where they were 12 months before, when they had just become parents. The joy of their own first-born child, a baby boy, was intense, but short-lived. Then living in Wisconsin, the couple logged weeks in the hospital with a son who showed signs of health problems soon after birth. By Nov. 6, their baby had lost the battle with spinal muscular atrophy.
"A year ago we were in the hospital, trying to make decisions about 'Do no resuscitate,'" Justin Battles said, sitting beside his wife as she bounced the baby foster girl on her lap. Families can fall apart after things like that, she added.
The couple regrouped. They moved to Florida, signed up for classes to become foster parents, and within a day of certification, had children placed in their home.
"We felt God had a purpose for us, not just to wallow in our loss," Magdalena Battles said. "We had all the baby stuff. It was a shame to just let it sit."
By the numbers
From 1998-2007, just under 2.2 million people were deported from the U.S. Of those, 108,000 were parents of U.S.-born citizen children, according to a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report.
From April to June, Justin Battles shuttled back and forth to a storage unit, dismantling and assembling cribs and toddler beds as new foster children arrived to their three-bedroom house. Seven children stayed for a few weeks each.
But at the end of June, they got the one that stuck around. The one who reaches out for her foster dad's face and giggles. The one who, when her foster mother pats her on the back to comfort her, pats her right back.
The Battles want to adopt the baby and raise her alongside their biological daughter, due in January. They would take the adopted girl when she is older to visit the Guatemalan highlands from where her biological mother emigrated years ago to work in Florida's fields.
* * * * *
There is a box on the first page of Lopez's June 22 arrest report, beneath her name, height, weight, and address. The box is for immigration status.
The letter "I" is typed inside, and that could be what stands between Lopez ever having custody of her U.S.-born children again.
The 'I' on the immigration status generally stands for illegal, according to the Collier County Sheriff's Office, which cannot release an inmate's immigration status, however.
CCSO
- Name: MARIA LOPEZ
- Charge: NEGLECT OF CHILD W/O GREAT BODILY HARM
- Residence: Naples, FL
- Age: 42
Lopez's felony arrest means if she is convicted or accepts a plea, she faces incarceration, followed by likely deportation.
"Every child welfare case is complicated without immigration consequences," said Bernard Perlmutter, a University of Miami law professor who focuses on children's rights and the foster care system. "The immigration consequences make it complicated on steroids, because it could result in the de facto or legal severance of parental rights. (It) ratchets the risk of family break-up to a higher level."
Lopez's children are part of what is called a mixed-status family, in which family members don't all have the same immigration status. The three children receive health care and other welfare assistance. They have never lived in their parents' native countries of Guatemala and Mexico, or met their half-siblings in those countries, either.
From 1998-2007, just under 2.2 million people were deported from the U.S. Of those, 108,000 were parents of U.S.-born citizen children, according to a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement doesn't maintain data on whether citizen children remained in the U.S. following a parent's deportation, or whether one or both parents were removed.
"If the parent was deported and we had the kid here ... it makes it extremely difficult (for the parent) to get their children back," said Aimee McLaughlin of the Children's Network of Southwest Florida, which handles child welfare services for five counties, including Collier.
"They can't work on a case plan if they're not here," McLaughlin explained.
To get her children back, as Lopez said in a jailhouse interview she wants to do, she needs to fulfill a case plan through the Florida Department of Children and Families – no small feat when requirements can include obtaining stable housing and employment, transportation, and substance abuse counseling, among other criteria.While reunification is the primary goal, keeping family connections is also important, McLaughlin said. Biological family in the U.S. could step forward to take the children in if they pass a home study, she said, documented or not. It is unclear whether Lopez has family locally.
Calixto Lopez-Sanchez, Maria Lopez's boyfriend and the father of her youngest child, said he does what he can. A field worker who migrates seasonally, he was paying for the room they shared in the Immokalee house, but when their baby came along, he needed to find more work.
"With three kids — I needed to find the money for rent, I couldn't do it otherwise," Lopez-Sanchez said.
The father of Lopez's older two children isn't a part of their lives.
Quotable
"It has to hit a certain threshold for us to remove a child," said Terri Durdaller, spokeswoman for the SunCoast region of the Department of Children and Families. "We don't just go in and say 'you haven't changed your daughter's diaper in six hours.'"
Lopez-Sanchez traveled to northern Florida to work two weeks before Lopez's arrest, and that's when her problems began, he said.
She suspected him of cheating on her. Although she had a house mate, Lopez said from jail that she felt alone and without a support system at the time.
Lopez said nothing had ever happened to her before like that day in June.
"It has to hit a certain threshold for us to remove a child," said Terri Durdaller, spokeswoman for the SunCoast region of the Department of Children and Families. "We don't just go in and say 'you haven't changed your daughter's diaper in six hours.'"
Since Lopez's arrest, her boyfriend has visited her in jail twice. He wants her to get the children back, the ones still in three separate foster homes in South Florida.
"I'm going to talk with her so she never does it again," Lopez-Sanchez said by phone from Quincy, where he is finishing up the season before returning to Immokalee.
He said he would take on responsibility of the baby if needed, but he travels following the growing seasons, and has to send money to his other family, including three children, in Mexico. Lopez-Sanchez, who has visited his daughter twice since Lopez's arrest, would like for the children to be reunited with their mother.
"I pray to God that she is freed," he said.
Lopez is convinced she will be reunited with her children. She wants to take them back to Guatemala, where her family can help, and where her two older children, ages 15 and 14, are waiting.
"I will be able to," Lopez said. Her new-found faith in God is what motivates her.
If deported, Lopez still would be able to try to reclaim the children.
Fast facts
Maria Lopez is convinced she will be reunited with her children. She wants to take them back to Guatemala, where her family can help, and where her two older children, ages 15 and 14, are waiting.
"(Parents abroad) still have rights to fight for their child," McLaughlin said.
According to law professor Perlmutter, however, DCF "could rely upon the deportation ... as the basis to legally sever her legal rights, or at least argue that reunification is not possible."
A decision is usually made on a foster child's future about nine to 12 months after removal from a home, whether the solution is reunification with parents, guardianship with a family member, or termination of parental rights, DCF's Durdaller said.
For now, Lopez remains behind bars, her bond set at $15,000. No trial date is set.
The Battles know there are months of uncertainty left. More court appearances for Lopez, more visits to their home from case workers. More bi-monthly play dates for the three siblings so they stay in each other's lives. More moments spent with a little girl who has known her foster parents longer than her biological ones.
"Even if she goes back," Magdalena Battles said, "a lot of healing has happened for us."
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