Reply #84: I couldn't care less about the Cuba/US aspects of this case.

[pnwmom]

I'm reacting to this case the same way I do every time a case arises where biological parents want to remove an older child from a home where s/he has closely bonded with new parents. All these cases are tragic, IMO.

And I'm not claiming to know what the best solution would be, except that it shouldn't be decided for political reasons, or on the basis of a biological parent's legal "ownership" of a child -- though I assume that is what it will come down to.

But to answer your question, the father agreed to let this Court decide the matter -- he didn't have to sign the document.

I think this case has never been the simple, cut-and-dried case many people here wish it to be -- at least, not if the child's emotional well-being is taken into account. The biological father is a virtual stranger to her. She has been with the foster parents since she was three, and they have already adopted her older brother -- the only constant in her life. She never lived with Izquierdo, the biological father, even when she lived in Cuba. (He left her mother while she was pregnant.) While she lived in Cuba, she never even visited him at his home, where he lives with another woman and their child. According to the woman who was the girl's then-caregiver, Izquierdo said he was too busy to spend time with his daughter. He did nothing when the brother told him about the girl's abuse, and he consented to the mother emigrating with the girl to the U.S. After the mother attempted suicide and gave up custody, Izquierdo waited 7 months to make arrangements to see the girl. And only when he learned that another couple loved and wanted her did he suddenly decide he wanted her, too.

What a father.

But I'm sure he'll win custody, because DNA appears to be everything. That, and politics.