For the first time, New Bedford foster parents are speaking publicly as they advocate to keep their foster child in the United States, saying the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families had been moving to reunite the girl with her biological father, who was deported to Guatemala, despite never having custody of her in the U.S.
Cathy and John Cobbett-Walden say the child, whom 25 Investigates is calling “S,” came to them through an emergency placement by DCF in 2021. She is now 8 years old and lived in their home for more than three years.
“We always talked about how that was the best day of our lives,” said foster mother, Cathy Cobbett-Walden.
At one point, the couple believed adoption was imminent.
“So, at some point, did it look like you would, the wheels were in motion for you to adopt her?” Kerry Kavanaugh asked.
“One hundred percent,” Cobbett-Walden said. “They were ready to terminate father’s rights. We had been licensed to adopt her.”
During that time, developments in the child’s care and protection case have raised renewed questions about how DCF determines the best interests of a child’s well-being.
Court records show the child’s biological mother had her parental rights terminated. She was 15 years old when “S” was born. The child’s biological father, a Guatemalan national, was 29 at the time of her birth.
Court filings say he was in and out of the child’s life and never had custody. He currently resides in Guatemala following his second deportation from the United States, according to court filings. 25 Investigates has reached out Immigrations Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security for more details about the deportation.
“And despite his deportation, DCF chose to continue on the path of permanently placing ‘S’ with him in Guatemala,” said the foster parents attorney, Kirsten Zwicker. The move would have sent the American-born child out of the country at which point DCF oversight would end.
“As soon as we started advocating for S’s wishes, they stopped sharing information with us. They stopped communicating with us,” said John Cobbett-Walden.
Zwicker said there was no clear plan in place to meet the child’s social and emotional needs in a country she does not know and where she does not speak the language.
“DCF’s prerogative of facilitating the removal of citizen children to foreign countries without any federal oversight was troubling to us,” Zwicker said. “And we raised that in our filings, that we saw no legal authority that allowed them to do so.”
As the case played out in court, 25 Investigates learned that in November, DCF removed “S” from the New Bedford foster home following a domestic violence incident. That case was later dismissed. There were no criminal charges, but the removal remained. Zwicker says the family was under enormous stress with the pending loss of the child they cared for as their own for so long.
Family wouldn’t provide details of the circumstances of the removal due to ongoing court proceedings but described it like this.
“It’s like your heart being ripped out of your chest,” John Cobbett-Walden said. “She’s the most amazing kid.”
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“So, I went home and made sure she had the clothes she would want, the toys I could fit into one suitcase because I wasn’t going to let her have a trash bag, Cathy Cobbett-Walden said.
The couple says even without ‘S’ in their home, they continued advocating to ensure the child’s wishes were heard in the custody decision.
Zwicker reiterated concerns about the father’s lack of custody and the agency’s authority.
“The facts here where father had no legal custody, has not had any legal custody. The fact that they were removing her under their own authority without some kind of federal oversight was troubling,” she said.
The foster parents sought an emergency court order to keep the child in the United States. In a new court filing this week, their legal team uncovered what court records described as the biological father’s “extensive criminal history in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” including charges of assault and battery, assault with a dangerous weapon involving a police officer, trafficking cocaine, possession with intent to distribute a Class B substance, furnishing false identification at arrest, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle and failure to stop for police.
The father’s attorney told 25 Investigates he could not comment on the case. In the father’s own court filing, attorneys refuted the foster parents’ claims, writing that their “claimed ‘irreparable harm’ is speculative and contradicted by the state court’s reunification findings.”
25 Investigates asked DCF about its plan to send an American child to live with her deported father in Guatemala while criminal cases remained open in Massachusetts. The agency did not respond by our Friday deadline. We will update this story when we hear back.
25 Investigates also reached out to the Office of the Child Advocate about the process. They said they need time to unpack our questions. We will update this story when we receive a response from the OCA.
“We want to be connected, we want to support her, we want to be involved in her life,” John Cobbett-Walden said through tears. “To have the opportunity to even just be there to support her at all, ripped away.”
For now, the foster parents say if they cannot be there for “S,” they hope someone in the system will be.
Thursday night, a Massachusetts juvenile court reversed course and vacated the order that would have sent the child to Guatemala. The case now remains open within the DCF system. 25 Investigates will continue to track what happens next.
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