State Department sends kidnapped child back to kidnapper

[pptoland]

Last week, Mary Victoria Lake, a child kidnapped to Japan in 2005 in  one of the most high-profile Japan abduction cases showed up at a US Consulate in Osaka, Japan asking to be rescued and sent home to her lawful parent in the United States. The consuate denied her request and sent her back to her kidnapper. This action was beyond incompetent. It was reprehensible, disgraceful, disgusting, and un-American.
 
This is the third time State has failed this parent. Twice previously, State illegally issued passports for his daughter without obtaining the father's signature, even after it had been established that her father was the lawful parent and the mother was a wanted kidnapper. 
 
I am at a loss for words.  I can only say that it is very clearly apparent now to all parents victimized by the crime of parental child abduction that the State Department clearly places relations with foreign nations over the safety well-being and lives of American citizen children.  Absolutely sickening.

[ANALE]

This is just UNBELIEVABLE.  What a disgrace!

[jenicoy]

http://crnjapan.net/The_Japan_Childrens_Rights_Network/itn-mltabsd.html

Breaking News: Father William Lake and abducted daughter Mary betrayed by US State Department

In what could be seen as nothing other than a slap from the highest authority the international parental abduction of Mary Lake hit a roadblock yesterday.

On Wednesday August 24th, 2011 in eastern Japan a young woman entered an American Consulate asking for help to return home. As the years passed from her 2005 abduction she began to realize that all of the lies and parental alienation dished out by Mom were nothing more than a farce.

Her mother, a Russian National abducted Mary taking her to Japan. Mary’s mother after consideration decided Japan was the place to go since as reported by Bachome & The Japan Children’s Rights Network no child has ever returned after being abducted to Japan. Mary was born and raised in Florida and has always considered America her home even after her mother illegally removed her. She waited for the right time, the perfect occasion to seek out help from her government. She thought Wednesday was the perfect day.

Mary made her way through Japan to the Consulate that bore the name of her home, The United States of America. Mary was aware that her father, William Lake had successfully gained “custody” in a Florida court in 2009. From that day forward Dad made it his mission to not only bring Mary home, but to bring light to the actions of the Japanese governments conspiracy in the abduction of foreign children.

The sun beamed down on her face as she opened the big wooden door. “What a day” she thought as she daydreamed about going to the beach again with Dad. A tear grew larger in her right eye with every step she took. It was just a matter of time before Mary would feel the big bear hug that only Dad could give her. After entering she made her way to the desk and said “help.”

After a bit of shuffling and political rhetoric, an official discussed the situation with young Mary. It seems the US Government didn’t have the $500.00 to buy Mary a one way ticket home, so instead they gave her bus fare and told her to return to her abductor. Mary’s chance to fix the wrongs that had been done to her years prior were foiled, by her own Government.

Year after year the US State Department holds what it calls “Town Hall” meetings. They discuss with Left Behind Parents ways to assist in getting children returned. Dr. Kurt Campbell even stated in a recent meeting that the “return of abducted children was the State Departments highest priority.” Of course he failed to state it is true unless your name is Mary Lake, and you don’t have the money for an airplane ticket.

Where should American parents look when their own State Department lacks the ability to help a child in need ?

Where should Canadian parents look when their own Department of Foreign Affairs lacks the ability to help a child in need ?

[liesl78]

I saw the news on twitter, I didn't know it hadn't been posted here.
Really, there are no words to express how I felt upon reading this. I'd like the OCI to say something about this. But that's not going to happen...

[lovellboys]

So even an abducted child who WANTS desperately to go home is told to take a hike?? 

Shameful........

[Diane]

Somehow this feels like the worst betrayal of all.  Just the fact that they sent her back out to catch "a bus", seems to demonstrate the appalling, lack of concern for the safety and well being of a young girl.  An adult U.S. citizen can seek refuge in the American Consulate, and expect to find protection.  This child is not even a citizen of Japan......  and they just sent her back out on the street!!!!! 

There has to be a way we can all band together to draw attention to the indifference, the disdain, the partiality, and the lack of accountability of the U.S. government for the well being of it's abducted children. 

I know that we must all work to pass 1940 and that Congressman Smith is doing everything he can, and he has done so very much,  but he needs our full support and this community should be the place that he can find that.   I for one can no longer stomach the generic messages and actions coming out of the state dept, and the OCI.    Maybe it's time for a hunger strike or a sit down at the state dept.  I'm open to any collective action we could make.

Finally,  Mr. Lake my heart goes out to you and your amazing daughter.  Hopefully this will bring attention. to her situation.   Dateline may well pick this one up.    She is not in her own country.  She is not a citizen of Japan and there is not a legal reason on earth that Japan should not release her to you.  This is another of these stories that every U.S. citizen needs to hear.   

[SageDad]

Kinda reminds of this story from 2002...

It would seem that not much has changed in the last 10 years.

FOGGY BOTTOM BETRAYAL

'I Am an American' The State Department sends in the Marines to consign a U.S. citizen to Saudi hell.

By WILLIAM MCGURN

The words crackle over the phone line from Riyadh, in softly accented English. "I am an American woman," Amjad Radwan repeats. "My mother always tells me how free America is, and how much my grandmother, my aunts and uncles and cousins in America love me. But though I am American I cannot go see them."

If Miss Radwan appears at pains to stress her adult status, it's because the same U.S. government that trumpets its liberation of Afghan women suddenly begins shuffling its diplomatic feet when the subject turns to adult American women languishing in Saudi Arabia. In the last month alone, when asked publicly about cases such as Amjad Radwan and Alia and Aisha Gheshayan, at least three senior American officials -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, and Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns -- all muddied the issue by resorting to the State Department line that the fates of at least a dozen American women in Saudi Arabia are "custody" spats involving "children."

The reason is plain: Most Americans understand the detention of innocent U.S. citizens as an outrage. Indeed, in many ways these cases are a microcosm of the whole U.S.-Saudi relationship, where Uncle Sam sends troops to prop up their regime while they show contempt for America. And why not? In accepting that these are mere family squabbles subject to Saudi law rather than declaring them affronts to America, the State Department only encourages Saudi intransigence.

"You can't imagine what it's like to put your faith in your government and then, when you turn to it for help, to hear time and again that 'we have to respect Saudi law,'" says Miss Radwan's mother, Monica Stowers. "It's like finding out there's no God."

Written Off

No one knows better than Amjad Radwan how desperate life can be for an American whose country has written her off. Born in 1983 in Houston to an American mother and Saudi father who had met at the University of Dallas, she was taken to Saudi Arabia as an infant, along with her older brother, Rasheed. When they arrived in Riyadh later that year, her mother was in for a nasty shock: Nizar Radwan had neglected to tell her (or the state of Texas, under whose laws he was married) that he already had a wife and family. It wouldn't be the first time a Saudi would demonstrate his scorn for American law.

When Miss Stowers said she wanted to return home, he did what too many other Saudi men have done: He grabbed the children. When she protested, an Islamic court awarded him custody because she was a Christian. Miss Stowers returned to America believing her government would help her -- a big mistake. Over the next decade, apart from sporadic visits at a Saudi police station, Amjad would be almost entirely cut off from her mother.

Amjad's father raised her to believe she was the child of his first wife. But her brother Rasheed told her it was a lie, valiantly keeping the memory of their American mother alive. In 1990 Miss Stowers went back to Saudi Arabia, and Rasheed met her at the airport. Not long after, they made their move, picking Amjad up at school and fleeing to the American Embassy. There, she believed, she would find refuge.

That was her second big mistake.

In testimony submitted to the House Government Reform Committee, Miss Stowers says that Karla Reed, a State Department officer, coldly informed her that the American Embassy was "not a hotel." When Miss Stowers refused to leave and pleaded for help, two Marines were brought in. Miss Stowers says she held the American passports of her and her two U.S. children in front of her, never believing that an American Embassy would turn the American military on a helpless American mother and her children.

"You see that American flag over the embassy and you think, 'I'm safe now. This is civilization, and they'll do something to help me here.' " One of the Marines apologized to her. Amjad, who was then only seven years old, recalls being scooped up by "a big man" and then taken out of the office as her mom and brother followed. Another State Department officer had already called Miss Stowers's ex-husband.

Again Amjad was taken from her. Ultimately, Miss Stowers would be arrested and spend time in a Saudi prison.

Typically the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh hasn't been all that eager to hear from Miss Stowers. But when the embassy got wind of last month's congressional hearings on how State has botched these cases, the embassy's Charles Glatz called to find out what she was going to say. Mr. Glatz, she says, told her that Ms. Reed denies any recollection of calling in the Marines, though the Government Reform Committee does have an embassy write-up of the incident. According to the Marine Corps, this is definitely outside the parameters governing embassy Marine, who are there to protect national security and diplomats -- not to do State's dirty work.

Since that day, Miss Radwan's life rivals anything in "1001 Arabian Nights." Sodomized by her half brother (Rasheed was also sodomized by the same half-brother, as well as by his uncle), she was married off by her father at age 12. But she ran away, eventually living with her mother as a quasi-fugitive in an abandoned Saudi school. Miss Radwan's Saudi husband divorced her, and today mother, daughter and brother live together in a legal but furtive existence, with Miss Radwan unable to leave and all three looking over their shoulders for whatever horror Saudi law might bring next.

Faith in America

Throughout all these travails, Miss Stowers has tried to maintain her faith in her homeland. An American flag, for example, hangs over her television set. Her father, Eddie Stowers, was a sailor who drove landing vehicles on D-Day and later endured kamikaze attacks as a Navy gunner in the Pacific -- but whose reward from his country was never to meet his granddaughter before he died. Ditto for an uncle of Miss Radwan's who served in Vietnam. Alas, outside her dreams the closest Miss Radwan gets to America these days is a Riyadh Starbucks or Safeway.

This leads to some bitter ironies. Though Miss Radwan is forbidden to leave Saudi Arabia for America without written permission from her father, her Saudi relatives -- uncles, aunts and cousins -- have all been given visas by the State Department to visit America, which they apparently love to do. But she, the American citizen, can't.

"There is no future for me in Saudi Arabia," she tells me. "I can't go to school, I can't get a good job, and my father wants to marry me [off] to a man in his 40s."

Though State Department officials say they have raised this and other cases with Saudi officials right up to Crown Prince Abdullah, they make clear that they have done so only in the context of a custody dispute and not as what it really is: a thumb in America's eye. Calls to Secretary Powell and Assistant Secretary Burns were not returned, and Ari Fleischer says that while he concedes that Miss Radwan and the Gheshayan sisters are adults, "technically" he was right to label their cases custody disputes because these women were taken as children.

It is telling, moreover, that our diplomats always speak about "raising" these cases -- never about resolving them, or demanding that these American hostages be given exit visas, or even letting us know what the response is from, say, Crown Prince Abdullah when they do "raise" the issue with him. Americans, the Saudis and State both appreciate, have a short attention span, and in a few months the press and Congress will forget all about Miss Radwan and the Gheshayan sisters.

And so Miss Radwan rots in Saudi-imposed exile, wondering what will befall her should something happen to her 46-year-old mother, who's already been treated for cancer. "America is my future," she says firmly.

There was a day when American embassies rose to the occasion, granting refuge to a Catholic cardinal in Budapest, two Pentecostal families in Moscow, a Chinese dissident in Beijing, etc. Isn't it time George W. Bush instructed our embassy in Riyadh to begin showing as much concern for American women and children?

Mr. McGurn is the Journal's chief editorial writer.

Updated July 11, 2002

[SageDad]

Then there is this incredible video of Ms Stowers describing the way she was treated at the US Embassy by officials from the State Department.

Americans Trapped in Saudi Arabia 4 of 4: Who Will Move a Mountain?

[SageDad]

But it's not that the State Department doesn't care about kids.  They do!  They just don't care about American kids, and especially not their American parents.

People often mistakenly belief that the State Department works for the American people (an easy mistake to make since that's what they actually say.)  But they don't.  Their real job is to help foreign people and governments and make them happy -- not to help Americans.

One of many examples of this is the Elian Gonzalez case:

A Double Standard for Our Children (Issue date 10/7/00)
The case of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez has received attention at the highest levels of government, while the plight of American children kidnapped abroad isn’t on the agenda.

By Timothy Maier

Should he stay or should he go? That no longer may be the question for 6-year-old Elian
Gonzalez, because the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, has decided
the boy must be returned to Cuba by Jan. 14 and has been trying to arrange with the
Cuban government to transport the boy’s father to this country so he can claim his son in
Miami. Thousands of Cuban exiles responded by saying they’d create a human chain
around the boy’s home in Miami to prevent his return to Cuba and demanded a local
hearing to decide Elian’s fate. At press time, word from Cuba was that Elian’s father,
Juan Gonzalez, steadfastly was refusing to come to the United States — arguing that
Florida is too “hostile” and that under international law it is the responsibility of the
United States to return the child.

While the father’s refusal to rush to his son has perplexed American parents, there
was speculation that it resulted from Fidel Castro’s control over the father and
grandparents in Cuba. Some news reports even suggested the father also had been
planning to escape to the United States, but he has denied the allegation.

Regardless, the case has triggered a sticky international incident, with Elian’s Cuban
relatives and Castro charging the boy is being “tortured” psychologically and “bribed”
with toys and Walt Disney World trips. His family in Cuba has demanded his return
since he was rescued Thanksgiving Day after spending two harrowing days and nights
clinging to an inner tube on the open sea following the capsizing of an aluminum boat
filled with refugees fleeing Cuba to the United States.

He was one of three survivors rescued by two fishermen near where 10 Cubans —
including the boy’s mother and stepfather — perished. Elian since has been living
comfortably with uncles and aunts who have been in Miami since the 1960s. He attends a
private school that has pitched in $40,000 to pay for his education. In Cuba, the boy’s
father claims the mother kidnapped the child without paternal consent, which is disputed
by the Miami relatives.

INS Commissioner Doris Meissner says the father is not being pressured by Castro
and wants his son back home. “This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs
with his father,” she said at a news conference.

Elian’s relatives in Miami, as well as Cuban-American politicians and activists, say it
would be a travesty to repatriate the boy to the country his mother died trying to help him
escape. The Florida relatives claim the father is being controlled by Castro; the Cuban
dictator denies he would ever do such a thing, alleging Juan Gonzalez has been offered
$2 million by the “yankee dogs” to travel to Miami but has refused. Meanwhile, one of
the boy’s relatives in Cuba, whose name has not been released, wrote a passionate letter
to first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, pleading: “Don’t send Elian [back to Cuba] to be
the puppet of his mother’s murderer.”

As the INS attempted to broker a deal to bring the father here, attorneys for the
Miami relatives said that would not be enough. They wanted the child’s maternal and
paternal grandparents to accompany the father if such arrangements were made to ensure
no one is being held hostage to guarantee a return trip. The risk for Castro was that, once
here, all might defect and further embarrass his regime.

Castro continued to issue assorted warnings even as the Clinton administration
bobbed and weaved to try to find a politic way to send back the boy. The Cuban dictator
ordered his countrymen to stage protests, which were countered in Miami by protests
from exiles opposed to the Castro regime. Castro since has applauded the INS decision
but urged the U.S. government to control the “Cuban-American mafia and the extreme
right in Congress, who will try by all means possible to prevent the boy’s return to
Cuba.”

President Clinton, who supports the INS decision to return the boy, says he wanted
to “keep this decision out of politics.” But according to the New York Times, the
ramifications of either decision were discussed at the highest levels of government
because Clinton wants better relations with Cuba. Gestures have included wholehearted
support for Major League Baseball playing exhibition games against Cuban teams last
summer despite Cuban-American protests.

Critics of the INS decision say it is clear that, if this were a Republican
administration, Elian would be staying in this country. The Republican National
Committee and the two leading Republican presidential candidates, George W. Bush and
John McCain, angrily blasted Clinton’s decision to send the boy back to Cuba.
On the Democratic side, Vice President Al Gore blamed Castro for forcing a choice
between freedom and living with his father, while Bill Bradley said he wouldn’t
second-guess the INS. However, Gore’s initial support of the decision could result in
serious political damage for his candidacy — particularly in south Florida, where there is
a prominent Cuban-American population that wants Elian to live in Miami. After a poll
by the Miami Herald showed 90 percent of Cuban-Americans there oppose returning the
boy, Gore backed off, saying he would await the court appeals before commenting
further.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who represents the Little Havana
neighborhood of Miami, charged, “Although we are all well aware of the record the
Clinton administration has of kowtowing to the Castro regime, I would have expected our
U.S. officials to abide by INS’ stated commitment to protect the needs of refugee
children. This is unconscionable and flies in the face of humanitarian principles.”
She added that the Clinton administration chose to ignore the needs and welfare of
Elian by making a decision based “solely on information provided by the Castro regime
and on controlled interviews with the father.”

Ros-Lehtinen says there is a legal problem because the INS, in an unprecedented move,
failed to hold a hearing to determine the boy’s fate. “This decision by INS
ignores its very own guidelines on children’s-asylum cases which were designed to
protect children from governments such as the Castro regime. These guidelines
specifically refer to a number of violations which apply in Elian’s case because these are
activities in which the Castro regime is engaged. However, it was also INS’ responsibility
to look at the future threat which Elian would be exposed to.”

The INS, which falls under the jurisdiction of Attorney General Janet Reno, had not
backed down from its decision despite a letter from the boy’s Miami relatives urging the
Clinton administration to honor the wishes of his mother. Attorneys for the boy’s
relatives were moving quickly to ask a federal judge for a restraining order, which could
delay the deportation of the child for months. Such delays in American custody cases
often have ended with a ruling that it would be too disruptive to the child to be turned
over to another parent — even when evidence showed the child was kidnapped by the
parent with de facto custody.

American parents whose children have been kidnapped by ex-spouses to foreign
countries tell Insight that they are frustrated that Clinton has put so much energy and
money into this case while putting recovery of American children on a back burner (see
“Justice Ignores Stolen Kids,” Nov. 29, 1999).

Mitch Goldstein of Georgia whose daughter, Kelly Michelle, was abducted to
Switzerland by her mother in 1996 says: “I have found it quite ironic that so many
people have become involved in this incident — all the way up to President Clinton
himself — while the plight of our own U.S.-born children continues to be ignored. If our
government showed half the resolve they have displayed in this case to bring our children
home, I have no doubt the majority of them would be home where they belong. Whereas
I do not claim to have an easy answer to this difficult situation, I do feel the father of the
boy should be allowed to come to the U.S. and decide whether he wants his son to
remain here or return with him to Cuba.”

The diplomatic flap has put Florida Republican Gov. Jeb Bush in an awkward
position because he is known to favor state legislation to help American parents who
remain abroad after being victimized by parental kidnapping. He sought to treat the case
as an immigration matter and to allow the federal authorities to handle that part of the
case before stepping into it.

Most parents who have experienced parental abduction see the issue as a no-brainer
— enforce international law and return the boy. Under the Hague Convention, the United
States is required to hold a custodial hearing and then return the child, though Cuba is
not a party to the treaty. But because of the political issue the U.S. government decided to
review the situation carefully before surrendering the boy. INS officials flew to Cuba in
December and met with the lad’s father, who provided a birth certificate and other
records supporting paternity and status of an involved parent. Elian now is listed as an
INS parolee, eligible to apply for permanent U.S. residence in one year. But, because he
is underage, a legal representative must make the application for him.

In Washington, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of
North Carolina hopes to bypass any INS arrangement by introducing legislation that
would grant immediate U.S. citizenship to Elian. Helms sent a sharply worded letter to
Reno urging her not to bow to Castro, saying: “If an East German mother had died
trying to cross the Berlin Wall with her child, can you imagine for one instant throwing
the child back over the wall?” Helms declared: “Elian must not be thrown back over the
wall simply because his mother did not survive the crossing.”

But some American parents see it differently and note that, unlike Clinton, the Cuban
dictator fights for his own. “I guess politics will always be in conflict with the law and
human rights. My child, Nadia, was abducted seven years ago when she was only 2 years
old,” says Maureen Dabbagh of Virginia Beach, Va., who founded PARENTS, a group
that assists victims of parental abduction. “I do not even know what she looks like or
where she is. So much for the superpower. There may be a conflict of politics between
the United States and Cuba but, as a mother, I wish Clinton would do for my child what
Castro is doing for this little Cuban child.”

Oklahoma father Randy Rider, whose two children were kidnapped by his ex-wife,
also wishes the Clinton administration would fight for American children. “I have two of
my own that I have not seen in over six years,” he says. “They are in Mexico and my
government will not intervene to bring them home to me. I know my children need me
and I need them, too. I know that father needs his son and his son needs him, too. I feel
for that Cuban boy and his dad.”

New York mother Amy Wheeler Hughes, whose two daughters, Saran and Harriet,
were kidnapped abroad by their father, notes other ironies: “It appears to me that the
father of the Cuban boy should be held responsible for coming to the aid of his son in
America. If and when my daughters are found it will be my responsibility to go and get
them. The father of this child should be required to go to Florida and show a sincere
effort to recover his son. I believe that this would not only provide the emotional support
that his boy needs after losing his mother but would also show that his son’s emotional
well-being is just as much a priority as his physical custody. In other words, show up
and show you care” about the good of the child.

Miami mother Jean Henderson, whose son, Roman, was kidnapped abroad and
returned recently because he is terminally ill with cancer, also believes the Cuban boy
should be returned. “I know nothing of Elian’s relationship with his father, but the man
says he wants to parent his child in his native country. Obviously, parents who abduct
their children and leave the U.S.A. also believe that they are taking them to a better
country. The Hague Convention was intended to deal with such issues. Some people
argue that Elian has expressed the wish to remain here. What child of barely 6 years of
age wouldn’t want to stay where he or she is getting so much attention, going to Disney
World, etc.?”

But those who know Communist Cuba firsthand and have lived with this situation
see it differently. The parents of Miriam Hernandez-Davis fled Cuba and now reside in
Miami with her and her daughter Yasmeen. The daughter was kidnapped by her father to
Saudi Arabia but, fortunately, was rescued in April. “Elian should stay in this country
because his mother risked her life and ended up dying in order to pursue freedom and
give her child a better life,” she says. “I have had distant cousins visit and have heard the
horror stories about Cuban life nowadays. I can understand how a parent would do
anything to secure that her child gets out of there.”

What the Law Says

Since Cuba is not a party to the Hague Convention — an international treaty to help
solve parental-abduction cases to foreign countries — the case of Elian Gonzalez has
been treated as an immigration matter. That put it into an administrative process in which
the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, might decide the fate of the
6-year-old boy without giving jurisdiction to the anti-Castro courts of south Florida.
Thus, INS moved to decide who could speak for Elian. Since he only has one natural
surviving parent, his father, Juan Gonzalez — who had visitation rights after a divorce
and has been determined by INS to be competent — the father was named by INS to
speak for Elian.

The effect was to give the father, rather than his Miami relatives, standing to ask for
an asylum hearing — a federal court proceeding allowing Cuban exiles to prove that
should they return to their homeland they would be persecuted for their religion, race,
political opinions or membership in a particular social group.

But because Elian is underage, none of this is likely to come into play, claims a
source familiar with the case. The INS has ruled that he does not have to have an asylum
hearing, making the issue of who could demand one in his name a crucial issue. Never
mind that it is unprecedented for a Cuban exile to be denied an asylum hearing.
The INS is playing hardball. If the mother had survived she might have been charged
on a complaint by the Cuban father with federal kidnapping because Elian was taken to
the United States without the father’s consent, claims an inside source knowledgeable of
the law. She also might have lost custody had the Justice Department argued that she
failed to act in the best interests of the child by subjecting a 6-year-old to such a
dangerous trip.

As a practical matter in anti-Castro south Florida, however, neither of these
possibilities was likely.

While Elian’s relatives may seek asylum for him on the grounds that the United
States offers better medical care, economic opportunity and freedom, this in itself would
not be enough to prevent him from being returned to Cuba, say authorities. The INS has
returned children to parents from countries with even worse medical care, and seeking
economic opportunity is not legal grounds for claiming asylum.

So how might this boy be kept in the United States despite the apparent willingness
of the INS and the Clinton/Gore administration to have him returned to Castro’s Cuba?
Simple enough, says a longtime Senate staffer: Any House or Senate committee
chairman with an interest in the matter could put him on indefinite subpoena for hearings
to include the attorney general and the director of the INS.

http://www.findthekids.org/pdf/double.pdf

[rduffiel]

I agree this is sickening. When have the state department helped a LBP?  Never ever.  This is truly atrocious.  They should just close the doors and go away.  They are totally useless.  You get more help fom a total stranger than the State Department.

TRULY UNBELIEVABLE!!!

[SageDad]

I agree this is sickening. When have the state department helped a LBP?  Never ever.  This is truly atrocious.  They should just close the doors and go away.  They are totally useless.  You get more help fom a total stranger than the State Department.

TRULY UNBELIEVABLE!!!

In many ways the very fact that they exist is counterproductive.  There existence, coupled with their unending, hypocritical and completely false rhetoric about "placing the highest priority" and "doing everything they can" makes people who are not paying close attention think that LBP's have all the help they need.

You see the news stories all the time (or at least I do:)   A child gets abducted from the US and the news report says that the victim parent is "working with the US State Department" to bring the child home.  Might as well say they are working "with the Tooth Fairy," it would have about as much actual significance and meaning.

[momoftwo]

Quote from Sagedad: "Might as well say they are working "with the Tooth Fairy," it would have about as much actual significance and meaning."

 :yeahthat  LMBO!!!!

[a.marcos]

SHAME :madgo

[Bree]

This is disgusting!  

Our government can't find the money somewhere to bring an abducted child home when she's begging to go home to her custodial parent???!!!!   :madgo :madgo :madgo :madgo  The more of this crap I read, the more upset I become.  Where does it end?  Do they think that her dad wouldn't have paid her airfare home?  Do they think that someone somewhere wouldn't have paid it?  Hell, I would have paid it!!!  

That poor little girl has had the ultimate betrayal.  

Given that I've never been to a consulate's office, who generally works there?  An American?  A foreign national?  Both?  Someone couldn't help this precious child!!!   I AM FURIOUS!  What the heck is the point in the office being there if they can't do their jobs?  

[StrngConviction]

Quote from Sagedad: "Might as well say they are working "with the Tooth Fairy," it would have about as much actual significance and meaning."

 :yeahthat  LMBO!!!!

:yeahthat