New Mexico sues to bring back teen forced to cross into Mexico

New Mexico's attorney general is seeking the return of a 15-year-old American citizen from Mexico after foster care staff allegedly drove the boy to a Texas border crossing and forced him to walk into Mexico alone to reunite with his estranged mother.

Attorney General Raul Torrez filed a civil lawsuit against the state's Children, Youth and Families Department (CYFD), alleging its staff drove the minor to El Paso, Texas, on July 6 and instructed him to cross the border bridge alone to find his mother, a Mexican national who had been deported earlier this year after being arrested on drug-related charges. The complaint was filed July 28.

Torrez's office has also asked a state judge to issue a temporary restraining order blocking future reunifications involving the removal of children from the US unless court-approved.

"The State of New Mexico cannot claim to protect children while abandoning one of its own at an international border," Torrez said in a news release.

Child ran back across border, agency allegedly refused to help.

According to the complaint, the child crossed into Mexico but could not immediately locate his mother and ran back across several lanes of traffic to re-enter the US. 

US Customs and Border Protection then urged CYFD to drive the child back to New Mexico, but the complaint alleges staff refused, telling authorities the child was now a "Texas problem" before leaving him at the border.

CYFD spokesperson Jake Thompson said in a statement Wednesday that the child was safe and living with his mother, with whom the agency remained in frequent contact. "CYFD is reviewing the complaint and the order and will respond to them in court," Thompson said.

Following the border incident, the boy was placed with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, according to the complaint. Despite attempts to coordinate with CYFD, Texas officials were allegedly forced to return the child to his mother in Mexico weeks later. Calls and emails to the Texas welfare agency were not returned Thursday.

Torrez said the teenager remains in Mexico with his mother despite several attempts to re-enter the US, and described the case as part of a broader pattern of neglect within the state's foster care system. He called on CYFD staff to take action to repatriate the boy.

CYFD denied the child's safety was ever at risk, saying his mother had requested the reunification and that staff had conducted two virtual home visits before concluding the arrangement was safe. The agency's Office of Advocacy includes immigration specialists who assist children in reuniting with family members abroad, according to its website.

Cristen Conley, director of the Corinne Wolfe Centre for Child and Family Justice at the University of New Mexico, said, "There is nothing in New Mexico state law that prohibits reuniting a child with a parent in another country, assuming it is done safely."

Michael Coleman, a spokesperson for New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, said the governor's office had remained in regular contact with CYFD throughout the case. "New Mexico and Texas authorities, and a New Mexico judge, independently concluded that the child should be with his mother," Coleman said in a statement, adding that the attorney general's filing did not specify where the child would live if returned to New Mexico.

The lawsuit comes months after the New Mexico Department of Justice released a 200-page report in April alleging systemic failures within the child welfare agency, including claims that children were returned to unsafe environments as staff prioritised reunification over safety. The case also comes amid efforts by the Trump administration to deport immigrant children by accessing data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement and bypassing earlier court rulings, according to the report.

After the border incident, the teenager contacted the Office of the Child Advocate, an independent watchdog that monitors the child welfare system, which referred the case to the state Department of Justice.

The complaint states the boy's parents are both Mexican nationals, but he had been living in the US with his siblings and godmother and had had no contact with either parent for years. It says the godmother attempted to send him to Mexico earlier this summer, but he ran away and ended up at a New Mexico hospital near the border. When he was due to be discharged in June, the hospital declined to release him to his godmother, who was not his legal guardian, and instead contacted CYFD, which placed him in foster care.

The complaint alleges CYFD failed to conduct proper risk assessments of the mother and instructed a minor to cross an international border on foot without adult supervision. It also states the child has a heart condition requiring daily medication, and that CYFD did not make sufficient efforts to ensure continued medical care after the reunification.

In its statement, CYFD said the boy had been in an informal guardianship arrangement with a couple identified as his godparents, who petitioned the court in June to end the arrangement, leaving him without a legal guardian in the US. The agency added that the boy's siblings have since relocated with the godparents across the border and now also live with the mother.

(Sourced through PTI