Boston, MA–As a result of over 2,000 protests from around the nation, Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) has asked me to meet with them this Wednesday in Miami. Our protest campaign, led by Fathers & Families in Boston and Glenn Sacks in Los Angeles, has been covered by the Orlando Sentinel, the Associated Press, nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post Writers Group and others. If you haven’t sent your protest yet, please do so now. It only takes two clicks. If you want to know all the facts of the case first, click here and you will find everything you might want to know.
But if you trust Glenn and I on this, just click here to go straight to the protest email, which you can modify or send as is. In this case, a Cuban mother brought her young daughter to the U.S., but quickly deteriorated psychologically and eventually attempted suicide. The DCF found that she had repeatedly hit and neglected her five-year-old girl, whose father is Cuban farmer Rafael Izquierdo, and placed the girl in temporary foster care. The DCF made no attempt to contact Izquierdo in Cuba even though it had his name and phone number. Worse, once Izquierdo learned on his own and came to the states to get his daughter, the DCF ginned up a series of now-discredited accusations against him. In September, District 11 Judge Jeri B. Cohen found that Izquierdo is a fit and committed father. But, instead of dropping its case against him, the DCF has escalated, hiring 21 lawyers to appeal Judge Cohen’s decision and to wrest custody away from a fit father so that the girl can be given permanently to her temporary foster parents. In our Wednesday meeting in Miami, I will ask DCF to drop its appeal, to get out of this girl’s life, to let her grow up in the loving care of her father, and to respect the right of fit parents to raise their own children free of government interference. I will also suggest ways that DCF can improve its outreach to non-custodial parents so that other cases like Izquierdo’s can be avoided. And I will inquire about yet another case that has come to attention, “Elian Gonzalez III.” Glenn Sacks says, “It is to DCF’s credit that they are willing to meet with those who disagree with them in this case. It shows that they have heard the massive protests of those who believe that politics should not be allowed to interfere between a child and her parents.” Once again, join this bandwagon, and add your voice to the thousands whose protests are already making a difference. Click here if you want to learn more details about the case. But if you just want to go straight to the protest email, click here. I will give you further updates after the Wednesday meeting.
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