Emotions Drove Pair in Abandonment

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/nyregion/03baby.html

March 3, 2008
Emotions Drove Pair in Abandonment
By PATRICK McGEEHAN and DARYL KHAN

Echoes of their own lives led the aunt of the baby girl who was dropped off at a firehouse in Queens last week and the livery cab driver who initially claimed that a stranger abandoned the baby in his car to want the child to have a better life.

They know the desperation and pain of leaving a child behind for the good of that child, because they had both left children of their own in their native Ecuador, they said on Sunday.

The aunt, Maria Siavichay, 21, a waitress who immigrated to New York last year, said the decision to hand her brother’s child, Daniella, over to firefighters had in some ways been more difficult than leaving her 4-year-old behind. She knew her daughter was safe in her grandmother's care, Ms. Siavichay said.

“I knew when I left my daughter that I was going to see her again,” she said, “but I didn’t know if I was ever going to see my niece again.”

On Thursday morning, Ms. Siavichay had her companion, Klever Sailema, the taxi driver, take Daniella to a firehouse on 43rd Avenue in Corona.

Mr. Sailema, 44, was arrested on Saturday after the police determined that he had played a role in a scheme to seek a haven for Daniella.

Ms. Siavichay was also arrested. The police were still looking for her brother, Carlos Rodas, Daniella's father.

Mr. Sailema and Ms. Siavichay, who were freed after their arrests, spoke during an interview in their lawyer’s office.

Mr. Rodas decided to give Daniella away because he could not care for her anymore, Mr. Sailema said.

The little girl's teenage mother had walked out on him a week before and Mr. Rodas could no longer cope with the child, he said.

“I saw the pain Carlos was going through at the time,” Mr. Sailema said. “I was at the point of breaking down and crying as well. To see a father have to give up the thing he loves the most, as a father that destroys you.”

Mr. Sailema said he could sympathize because 21 years ago he left two small daughters in his hometown of Ambato to make his way to America.

Those daughters, now 26 and 23, live in New York now but he is estranged from them, he said.

So when Mr. Rodas and Ms. Siavichay climbed into the back seat with Daniella, he agreed to the plan that had been hatched, he said.

First, he dropped Mr. Rodas off at the construction site where he worked. Then, he drove Ms. Siavichay toward the firehouse.

But along the way, she grew increasingly worried about attracting the attention of immigration officials. So Mr. Sailema let her off at a subway station.

Ms. Siavichay hugged her niece one last time, then strapped her in with a seat belt and boarded a train for work.

“My day was really bad,” Ms. Siavichay said. “All I could do was think of my own daughter.”

Mr. Sailema said he then drove Daniella to the firehouse, believing he could simply hand her over with little or no explanation. But he then wound up telling the police that the baby had been left in his car by a stranger who got out to make a phone call and never came back.

That tale unwound quickly, and now Mr. Sailema's livery license has been suspended, the police are searching for Mr. Rodas, and Ms. Siavichay fears that she may be sent back to Ecuador.

“We were trying to do something good, not something bad,” Mr. Sailema said. “I tried to help the dad because the dad couldn’t do anything else for the child. Maria couldn't do anything else for the child either.”

要するに、

セイレマさん（４４歳、おそらくエクアドルからの移民）には２１歳のガールフレンド（シャヴィチェイさん）がいた。
シャビチェイさんはエクアドルからアメリカに潜り込んだ不法移民。
シャビチェイさんの弟（もしくは兄）、カルロス・ロダスさんが問題の子供ダニエラの父親。
子供の母親は１４歳！で、ロダスさんとけんかして数日前に家を出て行った。

さらに続きます。

セイレマさん自身、２１年前、エクアドルのアンバトに５歳と２歳の子供を残してアメリカに来たので、子供をおいてくるつらい気持ちはよくわかる。
セイレマさんの娘たちは今はニューヨークに住んでいるが、父親とは疎遠である。
父親のロダスさんは現在行方不明。

セイレマさんと、シャビチェイさんは当局に虚偽報告の罪等で逮捕され、保釈されているところです。そもそも母親が１４歳であるとすると、父親には未成年強姦罪が付け加わります。

この後、司法システムで処罰されることになると思いますが、こういう不幸の連鎖の上に当局が苦痛を付け加える、なんともやりきれないことになりそうです。