October IO, 2007
Page A3
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Child
Custody
Eludes
Couple
Latinos Stung in DMV Crackdown
Suspicious applicants are reported to police
Even after injury
in state foster
care system
by R aymond R endleman
T he P ortland O bserver
T w o -y e a r-o ld
S tep h an ie
K untupis rem ained in Legacy
Emanuel Hospital more than two
months after suffering head inju
ries while in Oregon Department of
Human Services’ foster-care sys
tem.
Herbirth parents. Monique Peals
and Steven Kuntupis, lost custody
after being arrestedJan. 3 1 for meth
amphetamine possession, but they
have been in drug treatment since
then.
The tw o contend that their
progress in treatment and their ea
gerness to take care of their own
child should merit reunification
considering how much trouble DHS
has had attracting foster parents.
But after their child was seriously
injured in state-sponsored foster
care, they were horrified to see their
child going to another set of foster
parents.
DHS failed to interview the first
set of parents or make sure that
they took the required I O-hour train
ing c o u rse b efo re sending
Stephanie to live with them, ac
cording to reports in the Orego
nian.
The foster parents alsohad crimi
nal histories, but DHS considered
them suitable parents because their
crimes did not include homicide or
sexual abuse. Other records show
they had many false names.
As DHS redoubles efforts to re
cruit foster parents, the newspaper
found that O regon's child-protec -
photo by
R aymond R endi . eman /T he P ortland O bserv er
Monique Peals and Steven Kuntupis hold a picture of their two-year-
old daughter Stephanie as they await her release from Legacy
Emanuel Children's Hospital, more than two months after she
suffered head injuries while in state-sponsored foster care.
tion agency often skips required
monthly visits to foster parents due
to lack of funds.
Stephanie’s parents claim that
their daughter’s injury could have
been avoided if the state had re
sponded to a previous complaint
regarding injuries tochildren under
the foster couple's care.
The parents understand the
child-protection agency's predica
ment, given its limited funding, but
argue that it should loosen regula
tions in minor cases so resources
can be left for parents truly unable
or unwilling to care for their chil
dren.
Instead, the agency orchestrates
a complex series ofhoops for every
parent that it determines to be a
danger to a child. In the case of
Stephanie's parents, the couple
attempted to gain trust by follow-
ing specific procedures delineated
for an outing that apparently be
came grounds for further restric
tions.
"I'm not getting my daughter
back because of a miscommunica
tion,” says Peals, who is African
American. "I feel like my rights are
being violated, because I've been
staying clean and sober.”
Both parents, especially the
child's father who has Greek heri
tage, have begun to see the
agency’s practices as stemming
from racial prejudice. The agency
processes nearly three times as
many African-American children as
proportional to their numbers in
Oregon.
“We just want justice for our
daughter,” says Kuntupis. “Even
though we do everything right, they
make us out to be villains.”
(AP) — Workers in Oregon's Department
of Motor Vehicles have begun calling police
when applicants for driver’s licenses have
suspicious documents, rather than just turning
them away.
The intent is to deter people that are trying
to create fake identification from shopping
among driver's license offices in search of a
lax employee.
From June through August, 140 people were
turned in — about 94 percent of them with
Latino names, according to Driver and Motor
Vehicle Services records obtained by the Or
egonian newspaper.
In one case, a Clackamas County woman
in the country legally on a visa was arrested,
but later her birth certificate was found to
be legitimate. And in another, it said, a
woman in the country illegally presented her
Mexican birth certificate and was arrested
on forgery ch arg es. P ro secu to rs later
dropped both cases.
Reporting applicants with suspicious docu
ments was one of the few alternatives for a
division charged with providing valid identifi
cation but with few tools to curb fraud, said
Lorna Youngs, administrator of the agency.
Oregon State Police and police in Portland,
Beaverton and Albany, who have gotten many
of the referrals, report 13 people have been
convicted of crimes, and a dozen others await
prosecution.
Suspects have confessed to buying Social
Security cards in Montana, Los Angeles and
Hillsboro, police said. Dubious documents in
clude Social Security cards, bank statements,
consulate cards and out-of-state driver's li
censes, as well as identification from Mexico,
Brazil, El Salvador, Costa Rica and other coun
tries.
"Perhaps a large portion of people that are
offending with bogus documents happen to be
Latinos," said Angel Lopez, attorney for the
woman with valid papers in Clackamas County.
"But it's equally plausible that Latinos are being
ferreted out in the first place because clerks do
not understand the validity of documents that
seem strange and foreign."
David Simon, acting consul of the Mexican
Consulate in Portland, said the consulate wants
the state agency to rely on it to validate certain
forms of identification before calling police.
"Before they take steps that affect people's
lives, they should look at other solutions and
have other methods to verify documents," he
said.
Youngs said she does not know why so
many of those suspected of fraudulent activity
by DMV employees appear to be Latino.
"If that is an accusation people could level,
we would want to address it because that was
the last thing that was intended," she said.
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Annual Wellness Village
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Do you drive, walk, bike or take the
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3rd Annual
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