Baby still in state care after case against parents was dropped

Baby still in state care after case against parents was dropped

(Sounds familiar. It happens in Nashua, NH all the time. Criminal charges are dropped and the children are still never returned.)

St. George » Infant was taken after police said photos showed sexual abuse; father will be deported.
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 03/29/2010 10:03:38 PM MDT

An infant remains in state custody and his parents in jail as attorneys try to sort out a tangled case that began when a couple was wrongly accused of sexual abuse.
"The problem we've got is one of those bureaucratic nightmares because they are alleged to be undocumented," said Alan D. Boyack, an attorney representing the baby's mother.
Two 5th District Court judges dismissed sexual abuse charges Monday filed against Sergio Diaz-Palomino, 34, and Alma Vasquez, 22, after prosecutors determined photographs given to police by a local film processing lab showed nothing more than "traditional family photos of a proud father with his son."
In the series of photos, Diaz-Palomino is affectionately posing with his naked 9-month-old son, Alex Uril Vasquez, and kissing him on various body parts -- head, forehead, arm, ear. One image shows the father kissing the infant's bottom and another appears to show him kissing the baby's genitals.
But Ryan J. Shaum, a Washington County deputy attorney, said there was no evidence the scenes depicted sexual molestation or any intent to harm the child and a medical exam showed no evidence of sexual abuse.
Diaz-Palomino told a police investigator that he was "proud to have a son and was sending the photos to family in Mexico," according to the charging document.
But the couple's immigration status and child-welfare policies could make getting their son back difficult, Boyack said.
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"Immigration has a hold on their custody, a legal hold, that the state can do nothing about even if the state wanted to," the attorney said. "I am trying work with immigration to see if, after the [child-welfare] case is completed, what if anything we can do to prevent the miscarriage of the child being separated from the parents."
Patti Vanwagoner, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child and Family Services, said she could not comment specifically on the Vasquez case.
But in general, dismissal of criminal charges does not necessarily end a child-welfare case, she said.
"We have a lot of situations where parents aren't formally charged," she said.
DCFS must determine whether a child is safe with his or her parents and then work toward reunification, which has to be ordered by a judge, she said.
In cases where parents of a child in state custody are deported, DCFS works with the Mexican consulate to see "if a child would be safe with relatives, if at all possible," Van Wagoner said.
A cousin said Diaz-Palomino has been in the U.S. for 10 years and was working at Red Robin restaurant in St. George.
Because of a previous deportation order, Diaz-Palomino is likely to be deported, said Georgina Coon, an advocate with the La Raz/PAC, a Latino advocacy organization.
But she hopes Vasquez, who was arrested and jailed a week ago, will be released Tuesday on bond and allowed to reunite with her son. Vasquez has been in the U.S. for three years and works at a Motel 6.
"She has been crying a lot. I told her that we are doing everything we can to get her out of jail. The state has nothing to keep that baby," Coon said.

http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_14780588