Arrest Made in NYC Subway Tragedy

A suspect was arrested on a murder charge Wednesday in the death of a man who was pushed in front of a subway train and photographed just before he was fatally struck.

Officer James Duffy said Naeem Davis, 30, has made statements implicating himself in Ki-Suck Han’s death.

Witnesses told investigators they saw a man talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached Han at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train’s path. Davis was taken into custody Tuesday after police viewed a security video showing a man fitting the description of the suspect working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center, police said.

Read it all here.

An immigrant deported to Mexico who is fighting to keep custody of his three children received humanitarian permission to return to the United States to continue his court battle in North Carolina.

[…]

The 34-year-old Montes’s nightmare began one morning in October 2010 when he got up to prepare breakfast for his pregnant wife and the couple’s sons, Isaias and Adrian, and get them ready to take them to daycare.

Having lived and worked nine years in Sparta, he was the family’s sole provider, as Marie – a U.S. citizen – suffers from an unspecified disabling mental illness.

Unable to get a driver’s license because he was undocumented, Montes had been arrested several times for driving without a license, but continued to drive so he could work.

When he went to court to pay his fines, two ICE agents were waiting for him.

[…]

Soon after Felipe’s deportation, his wife lost custody of their children due to economic difficulties and a decline in her health.

The state Division of Social Services placed the kids with foster families who are now seeking to adopt them.

Montes’s situation is not an isolated case, according to the Applied Research report ‘Shattered Families,’ which shows that more than 5,000 children of deported or detained immigrant parents are currently in foster homes. [Emphasis added.]

[…]

This is the latest on a case I first posted about here. The link on that Page is broken now, but I had excerpted generously, including this:

Child welfare officials are now asking a judge to strip Montes of his parental rights, reasoning it’s better for the children to live with strangers in the country where they were born than with their father in Mexico. Such a ruling could clear the way for their adoption.

That would be unfathomable to Montes, whose only brushes with the law were a string of traffic violations.

‘I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t use drugs,’ said Montes, 32, who crossed the border illegally in 2003 to work on Christmas tree farms. ‘I have always taken care of my children, I have always loved them. And now, the social services people want to take away my rights and give my children away to strangers.’

Montes’ lawyer says the father is at risk of being deemed an unfit parent solely because of his immigration status.

And:

A home study by Mexican social services authorities shows the Montes family’s cement block house in Mexico has a refrigerator, satellite television, microwave and plenty of space for children to play. There’s a school a few minutes away.

But North Carolina officials are concerned it doesn’t have running water. Officials also said Montes missed some scheduled calls with his children at their day care, or called on the wrong days. Montes has a cell phone, but service can be spotty in rural Mexico.

It makes me want to cry. Meddling “officials” think running water is important enough to sever parental rights. And there are thousands of cases that are similar. In a just world, Montes would be allowed to come back and stay, and have a drivers license, and support his wife and children.