A Mexican teenager who was forcibly taken by authorities and sent to the U.S. because they thought she was kidnapped has safely returned home, but her family has vowed to take action against whomever was responsible for the egregious mistake, the Associated Press reported.
Alondra Luna Nunez, 14, returned to her parents in the Mexican state of Guanajuato on Wednesday after Mexican authorities working for Interpol snatched her from her middle school on April 16, an incident that was captured on video.
She was dumped into a courtroom in another state where a Texas woman named Dorotea Garcia argued Alondra was her daughter who was taken by her father to Mexico when she was 4, the AP reported.
The judge ruled in favor of Garcia and Alondra was facing a life away from her family in the U.S. - until a DNA test proved she was not Garcia's biological child.
"They stole my daughter," Susana Nunez, Alondra's mother, told Milenio Television. "I didn't know this woman existed."
According to Mexico's federal Attorney General's Office, Alondra was taken to a courtroom in Michoacan state. There, the girl's real parents provided birth certificates and testified Alondra was theirs, the AP reported.
But Garcia also had a birth certificate for her daughter Alondra Diaz Garcia, who was illegally taken by her father in 2007 and was believed to be in Michoacan, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Judge Cinthia Elodia Mercado ordered the girl into Garcia's custody and they traveled by bus to Houston. An unnamed court official told the AP that Alondra's parents did not provide the proper birth records.
Meanwhile, back in Mexico, the video of Alondra being taken caused such an uproar, the Foreign Ministry ordered the DNA test.
Alondra, who is now happy to be home, released a video message to her parents when she was in Houston telling them not to worry and that she was fine. But things were far from alright.
"She took me from my parents," Alondra told the AP. "I didn't know her or Mr. Reynaldo," she said, referring to the father of Garcia's daughter.
As for the whereabouts of Reynaldo and Alondra Garcia, that remains a mystery. It's also unclear how her mother located Alana Nunez. Interpol became involved after she traveled to Guanajuato earlier this year and said she found her daughter.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told the AP all "appropriate government channels" were used in the case, but it's not clear who got the international police organization involved.
Alondra later told the AP she begged the judge to allow a DNA test but she refused.
"We as judges are only responsible to resolve the case with respect to recovering the minor," Mercado told the AP.
"We don't do investigations or make inquiries."
