Custody Resolved, a Move Looms

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 30, 2007

MEMPHIS (AP) — An 8-year-old girl taken from an American couple and returned to her Chinese parents after a seven-year custody fight faces another big adjustment: moving to China.

Karen Pulfer Focht/Memphis Commercial Appeal, via World Picture Network
Anna Mae He with her mother, Qin Luo He. Anna is getting to know her family after years of living with foster parents.

The girl, Anna Mae He, rejoined her parents, Shaoqiang and Qin Luo He, in July, under orders from the Tennessee Supreme Court. She had lived with an American couple who took her in as an infant to help her financially struggling parents and then refused to give her back.

Now, with the custody fight resolved, Anna’s family faces deportation. Her father says it is time to head home to China.

“Next month, we’re going to do the paperwork with a federal immigration judge,” Mr. He said recently at his family’s small, two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Memphis.

Mr. He came to Tennessee to attend graduate school at the University of Memphis, but his student visa expired years ago. He was allowed to remain in the United States because of the custody fight, which began in May 2000 and ended with the court ruling in January.

“We always wanted custody to move back to China as a family,” Mr. He said.

An immigration judge agreed four years ago to delay ruling on the Hes’ immigration status, but Mr. He said that decision could come anytime now.

“If deported, we might never come back again,” Mr. He said. “With a voluntary departure, we don’t get an order.”

Mr. He said he expected to return to China by the end of February. A Memphis church, New Sardis Baptist, has begun a drive to help pay for the family’s move.

Ashok Kara, a family psychologist working with the Hes on Anna’s transition, said the girl was warming toward her parents and was getting along well with her brother, Andy, 7, and her sister, Avita, 5.

“At least on the surface, things are moving in a very positive direction,” Dr. Kara said. “She’s happy. She talks. She laughs. She jokes. Although beneath the surface where things are not easily observed, we don’t quite know what’s going on.”

A third grader, Anna earned all A’s and E’s on her latest report card. “She participates well when called up,” her teacher wrote. “I enjoy having her in class.”

Anna’s former foster parents, Jerry and Louise Baker, won a court order five years ago barring the Hes from any contact with Anna, so she is still just getting to know her family.

But piled up on a living room sofa one recent evening to watch cartoons, Anna, Andy and Avita shared the easy laughter of comfortable playmates.

Anna ignored questions about China or the pending move, focusing instead on the TV and a book of children’s poetry called “Falling Up.” She did find time, though, to occasionally poke Andy in the side with a foot, setting off bouts of giggling.

“She has been learning Chinese, but she’s a little bit afraid of the language,” her father said. “She told me it’s very difficult, this language. But she’s becoming more curious about China. She asks about the schools, the teachers, the children, what’s the subjects that are taught.”

Anna was born in January 1999 with her parents facing hard times financially and legally. Mr. He was accused of sexual assault by a female student at the university, a charge that cost him his scholarship and student stipend though he was acquitted at trial.

The Bakers, a suburban Memphis couple with four children of their own, were introduced to the Hes through a private foster-care organization. They volunteered to take in Anna for a few months but decided later to adopt her, even though the Hes wanted her back.

The Bakers accused the Hes of being unfit parents and argued that Anna would have a better life in America than in China.

In 2004, a Memphis judge took away the Hes’ parental rights on grounds of abandonment, a decision that drew widespread criticism as culturally and ethnically biased.

The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that the Hes thought they were giving up their daughter for a short time so she could get health insurance and lost custody largely because of their ignorance of American law. It ordered the family to be reunited.

Dr. Kara said he had hoped Anna would have more time to bond with her family before moving to a country with an unfamiliar culture and language.

“But the way things were set up, they were allowed to stay here until a resolution, and the resolution has taken place,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/us/30adopt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin






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