Amnesty ruled out for Guatemalan adoption mothers

Amnesty ruled out for Guatemalan adoption mothers

Mar 13, 2008

AP, ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA

Guatemalan prosecutors ruled out amnesty on Tuesday for birth mothers who used false identities to surrender their babies to an agency where 46 children being adopted by US families were seized in a raid last August.

The probe of the Casa Quivira agency turned up a slew of irregularities, including at least five cases in which birth mothers were allegedly provided with false identities to avoid having to obtain permission from family members and a judge to give up their babies.

Eighteen other mothers could not be found under the identities provided in the case files, prosecutors said.

"We can't give them amnesty," prosecutor Jaime Tecu said. "My role as prosecutor is to prosecute anyone who used falsified documents to fool the justice system."

The lack of amnesty could be a powerful deterrent to resolving the cases and reuniting these babies with their adoptive families in the US.

Unless the mothers come forward as their true selves and allow any family member with a claim to the children to properly renounce their rights before a judge, these babies will never have their adoptions finalized and be granted a US visa, Guatemalan and US officials said.

"We've asked for the adoption process to be halted," said Nineth Guevara, who runs a section of the Solictor General's office that supervises adoptions. "If the children's mothers come forward and demonstrate their consent, we'll let the adoptions go forward. If not, we won't."

The fraudulent documents were likely prepared by experts on behalf of the birth mothers, who in many cases are illiterate and could not have done it by themselves, Solicitor General Mario Gordillo said.

But Tecu, who is prosecuting Casa Quivira's notary and lawyer, says the government cannot ignore the responsibility of the birth mothers who repeatedly presented themselves as someone they were not.