A man who was kidnapped to Mexico by his father 30 years ago is making his way back to the United States.
His mother, Kathy Amaya, told NBC that her son David went missing when he was a toddler, and she hasn't seen him since. Her estranged husband, to whom she was married at the time, reportedly took their son to Mexico. For decades afterward, Kathy searched for her child, desperate to find his whereabouts. But when she tried to file a report that he'd gone missing, the state told her the case was out of its jurisdiction.
"I went to file a report, and they were saying they couldn't do anything because he was in Mexico," Kathy told NBC affiliate WEAU on Monday.
David Amaya's grandparents raised him in Central America, and he doesn't speak English. In an interview with NBC, the now 37-year-old man said that his father told him he was American, but didn't mention that he'd taken David from the United States without his mother knowing.
"My father told me my mother had left me abandoned and orphaned," David said through an interpreter. "I don't know my mother, and I find out she's been looking for me for 30 years, and I have the longing to meet her for the first time."
David was initially taken to Mexico with a month-long visitor's permit. But his father then left him in Central America, and visited him a number of times over the next 30 years. When David tried to get back into the United States on Oct. 30 with no papers, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials kept him in their custody for 48 hours with a number of undocumented immigrants.
"They didn't believe that I was an American," David explained.
Border Patrol agents who spoke with NBC told a different story - David's lack of identification caused officials to look more deeply into his profile. When they got a hold of his birth certificate, they realized that he was, indeed, a 37-year-old man born in Chicago, Ill. in 1976.
Agents in San Diego then phoned Kathy to tell her that her son was waiting at the station.
"They told me that they had someone detained that was crossing the border and he said his name was David Amaya," she said. "I wasn't sure if it was him, so we did some research and found out who it was."
A Point Loma church gave David a place to stay and some food while the clergy worked to raise money to send him to Wisconsin to meet his family. A pastor at Iglesia de Cristo Ministerios Llamada Final Inc. de San Diego also arranged a phone call for David and his mother. Despite their language barrier, the pastor told NBC that the two had a moving reunion.
"He just told me that he doesn't hold anything against me," Kathy said. "So that makes me happy."
After graduating high school in Mexico, David went on to study music in Monterrey. He is an avid drum player and has been on tour with a few bands.
