LONG WAY FOR BABIES COUPLE'S QUEST TO ADOPT RUNS AMOK IN ROMANIA

KEVIN McDERMOTT

The State Journal-Register

It all began seven years ago, when a central Illinois woman under-reported her income tax.

That crime now has ensnared two Romanian infants in a debacle involving four countries, an Illinois state agency, a desperate Pekin couple and a fallen communist dictator.

"There's no convincing them to give it up," says a frustrated Martha Cather of her son and daughter-in-law, Daryl and Debbie Cather of Pekin, who have spent almost three months trying to get back into the United States -- via Romania, Spain and Mexico -- with two adopted Romanian infants. "If there's a way to get the kids out, they'll find it."

The couple claims their new children, for whom they have been unable to obtain U.S. entrance visas, are the victims of an international bureaucracy gone wild. But officials from Washington to Springfield to Bucharest have said Debbie Cather is to blame, for allegedly trying to hide her past.

After the violent 1989 overthrow of communist ruler Nicolae Ceausescu, world media attention focused upon Romania's formerly invisible population: some 130,000 orphaned or abandoned children, victims of a disastrous economy and a murderous government.

The story struck the Cathers hard in their living room last year, during a segment of the ABC News show "20/20." Unable to have their own children, and daunted by years-long waiting lists for American adoptions, they saw it as the answer they had been waiting for.

"It was a moving show," Daryl Cather said on April 26, packing at home just hours before the couple flew from Peoria for what was scheduled to be a two-week trip to Romania. "We were watching it, and I guess you could say it hit us both at the same time." "At that point, I knew," Debbie Cather said on that day, as she surveyed the picture-perfect nursery awaiting the Romanian babies. "I started working on it six or eight hours a day . . . talking with the (U.S.) State Department, the Romanian Embassy in Washington, the American Embassy in Bucharest.

"Nobody has any guarantees," she said later, "but we're ready."

What she wasn't ready for was that her 1987 conviction for tax theft -- stemming from her 1984 tax return -- would come back to haunt her.

Shortly after arriving in Romania, the Cathers located and legally adopted two infants, Diedre, now 4 months old, and Dustin, 2 1/2 months.

In early interviews from Romania, the Cathers expressed surprise at their luck, because Romania's black-market baby trade by then had become an international scandal, and adoptions were being tied up in red tape. (In fact, the Romanian government temporarily halted all foreign adoptions shortly after the Cathers obtained custody of the children.) All that was left was to make final U.S. immigration visas for the babies. That's when the dominoes began falling.

After the Romanian government approved the adoptions, the United States refused to grant entrance visas for the children. It later was reported that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service had nixed the visas because Debbie Cather allegedly lied about her criminal tax conviction when she originally applied for them, then rushed to Romania without waiting for approval.

Subsequently, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services -- which had conducted a home study on the Cathers and cleared them for adoption -- took a second look at the family. The agency allegedly discovered that the couple had provided inaccurate information about their marital and employment history.

There apparently is nothing DCFS can do about the adoptions now, since they were made final before the apparent inaccuracies were discovered, said spokesman Ed McManus.

Unable to enter the United States with the children, the Cathers then learned they couldn't legally leave Romania without them, either.

As adoptive parents, they could have been arrested by Romanian authorities for abandonment if they tried to leave the kids. And the fates of Diedre and Dustin would have been worse: relegation to an institution with no hope of a new family, since children with two known, surviving parents are unadoptable under Romanian law.

Attempts to contact the Cathers in Romania last week were unsuccessful. But in previous interviews, they claimed accurate information was provided to American authorities from the beginning, a stance maintained by their Pekin attorney, Dennis Sheehan.

"It's one of these circumstances where Immigration hasn't budged. I don't know exactly why they haven't budged," Sheehan said, adding that INS hasn't provided him with a full account of the Cathers' status. "And the DCFS home study came out glowing, and now they're pulling the rug out from under them. They're really between a rock and a hard place."

Sheehan has lobbied Illinois members of Congress to go to bat for the couple, but without the results he had hoped for. If anything, congressional involvement has hurt their case.

Sen. Paul Simon's office looked into the case early last month and dropped it after two days. Simon spokesman Christopher Ryan declined to discuss details of that investigation, citing privacy laws. But he said it didn't turn up any indications of unfair treatment of the Cathers by INS or DCFS. "Senator Simon was satisfied with the progress" of the agencies, Ryan said, adding that Simon probably won't involve himself further in the situation.

"We've been in ongoing discussions with the INS, and it's a real sticky situation," said Ray LaHood, chief of staff for Rep. Bob Michel, R-Peoria. "We see our responsibility as making sure these folks get a fair shake, without really making a judgment (about whether their background was properly revealed). "At this point, I think INS is doing the job they're supposed to do. I have not seen any indication that they are going to change their stance."

Even if the children obtain U.S. visas, the Cathers still would have to win permanent citizenship for them. "They are far from over the hurdles even if they get the kids inside the borders of the United States," Sheehan said.

As of Friday, the Cathers reportedly were getting a little closer to those borders.

An American woman who answered the phone at Cathers' last known number in Bucharest said the couple and their two adopted children left for Madrid, Spain, early Friday. She said they planned to travel from there to Mexico, where they will continue to wait for visas to bring the children into the United States.

The woman, Sheila Taylor of Anniston, Ala., said the Cathers were told by American officials that the move was "all legal," and there was no problem obtaining temporary visas to Spain and Mexico.

"They're going to stay there (in Mexico) until their (U.S.) visas come through. They just want to be closer to their family," said Taylor, who met the Cathers in Romania and shared an apartment with them while she waited to leave the country with adopted twins. She's still waiting.

"They were just glad to be leaving. No one knows what it's like until they're here. You don't want to be here more than two weeks if you can help it."

While the Cathers might be getting physically closer to the United States, they apparently are as far as ever from obtaining INS permission to bring the children into the country. INS has declined to discuss the case, citing privacy laws, but a spokesman confirmed on Friday that the Cathers' status with the agency hadn't changed.

"Things don't look good," Sheehan acknowledged. But, despite all of the problems, he said Debbie Cather seems generally optimistic in his occasional telephone conversations with her. "She's upbeat. She says those children are hers and she's not going to give them up."

Caption:

Debbie Cather, at her home in Pekin, packs a box of medical supplies prior to her adoption trip to Romania -- a trip from which she and her husband have not yet returned. Prior to leaving for Romania, Debbie Cather, center, goes over last-minute plans with a travel agent at the Greater Peoria Airport. At right, with the cane, is her husband Darrel.