The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
Chapter 4 Drop
Mira:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on June 26, 2020, 07:20:18 PM ---Did I miss something? ::)
Since Harry is on other then good relations with the WC they probably won't help. However since no official notice of her birth exists then the argument would be she was a US citizen since there is no record or her being anything else. DNA would show Harry as the Daddy. The problem would arise when she needs a record of birth to apply for a SS number. But money can fix that. Of course this won't be an issue in the books.
--- End quote ---
Okay, here is further proof
--- Quote ---A child born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent or parents may acquire U.S. citizenship at birth if certain statutory requirements are met. ... According to U.S. law, a CRBA is proof of U.S. citizenship and may be used to obtain a U.S. passport and register for school, among other purposes..
--- End quote ---
Notice it said, U.S. citizen parent or parents...
What is a CRBA you may ask?
--- Quote ---A Consular Report of Birth (CRBA) is evidence of United States citizenship issued to a child born abroad to a U.S. citizen parent or parents who meet the requirements for transmitting citizenship under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
--- End quote ---
Susan was an American Citizen at the time of little Maggie's birth... I think that with his Church connections Father Forthill could have come up with enough evidence[such as Susan's passport] for a Consular Report of Birth for little Maggie so she'd have her passport and register for school. Since she was going to school at the time of Ghost Story, this must be the case.
Vriah:
I feel like Maggie's citizenry is moot point anyway, since the only way Forthill could have gotten any kind of paperwork for her in a timely manner would have been to just forge the hell out of it. International adoption laws and citizenry laws are just way too complicated for it to take anything less than months to get Maggie greenlit in even the best of circumstances. Plus, assuming Susan's name is even on the birth certificate (assuming there is a birth certificate - we literally have no idea under what circumstances Maggie was born), her goal in putting Maggie with a family was to hide her - and a paper trail with her name on it would have completely defeated the purpose. The smartest choice Susan could make in that situation would have been to forge a birth certificate with the adoptive parents' names on it.
And to further complicate things (please correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I've read Changes), but wasn't Maggie's adoptive family violently murdered? And then the child missing from the murder scene shows up in the US a few days later with no records of crossing borders?
Forget social workers, all someone would have to do is shine a light on how Maggie even got to the US in the first place, and Harry would be under immediate investigation from the FBI, CIA, and any other agency that investigates international crimes - for murder, kidnapping, and human trafficking at the least.
123Chikadee:
@Mira: Thanks for all the info. That's pretty helpful. :) Though I did know that social workers are called in by a matter of choice. But hey, I'm w/ Vriah at this point. It's moot. I figured it'd be an avenue baddies would try to exploit if they didn't want to get physical.
--- Quote from: Vriah on June 26, 2020, 11:12:10 PM ---Forget social workers, all someone would have to do is shine a light on how Maggie even got to the US in the first place, and Harry would be under immediate investigation from the FBI, CIA, and any other agency that investigates international crimes - for murder, kidnapping, and human trafficking at the least.
--- End quote ---
And wouldn't officials still be trying to figure out/deal with what happened at Chicken Pizza? Would they be able to link Harry to that? I'm not sure how Harry would react to that beyond panic.
Vriah:
--- Quote from: 123Chikadee on June 26, 2020, 11:54:52 PM ---And wouldn't officials still be trying to figure out/deal with what happened at Chicken Pizza? Would they be able to link Harry to that? I'm not sure how Harry would react to that beyond panic.
--- End quote ---
idk how I feel about Chichen Itza in that regard - it hasn't really been mentioned much beyond the vague warning of What Harry Is Willing To Do. Harry missed a year and can't exactly watch the news, so we have no idea how thousands of dead bodies appearing at an international monument played out with the authorities. Somewhere in the Dresden world, there's a cult of conspiracy theorists salivating over the 2012 Mayan Calendar Apocalypse who think they just struck gold. I also vaguely remember the implication that the site would be cleaned up magically, but again, it's been a while and I might be making things up.
If it wasn't cleaned up magically, and authorities are still looking for causes, Harry still wouldn't actually be easy to implicate. The only people who survived it as witnesses were on Harry's side, and he portaled there - he has solid alibis for being in Chicago only hours before and no records of travel. Implicating him in a kidnapping ring is easy enough when the evidence is a little girl literally living with him; implicating him in a massacre that happened half the world away with no trail to track him there is much less viable.
knightedbishop:
Wow, we’ve really gone down the rabbit hole with this whole deal around citizenship and child welfare involvement!
I was adopted at birth. My biological parents were Colombian. I was born on American soil so I was an American citizen. Citizenship is either by blood or by soil in the US. Proving it is a whole different matter, and that may be easy or hard for Harry. He has a lot more friends to ask for help these days. If he asked I’m sure he’d get what he needed to demonstrate Maggie’s US citizenship.
As for child welfare involvement- I am a court appointed special advocate for foster youth, and I’ve worked with the foster system in multiple states. I can tell you that child welfare only gets involved when someone reports abuse or neglect. And then they only care about that issue. Not a child’s citizenship or immigration status. As long as Harry has Maggie’s basic needs met, no foster system is going to spend time and resources taking her away when they are a tragically high number of other cases where there is a real safety concern.
And woe betide any social worker who tries to remove Maggie from Harry’s home.
And as a shameless plug: court appointed special advocates (also called guardians ad litem in some states) are sorely needed. Maybe Harry would have had a better experience with someone advocating to the court on his behalf. It is super rewarding and low time commitment. I think everyone should do it and I’d be happy to point anyone to the organization for their local area!
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