Adoption of Peggy

A father and child were citizens of India and lived in Massachusetts. The father took the child to the hospital with a broken elbow. The child received surgery, but the father did not provide the child with the follow-up care that the child required. A few months later, the father took the child to the hospital again because she had a soft spot on her head and her eye was swollen shut, consistent with trauma to the head. The child had numerous other injuries in different areas of the body. The most significant injury was genital mutilation, which resulted in substantial blood loss. The matter reached a juvenile court, where the father testified that the child had inflicted the injuries herself. The judge did not find the father’s testimony credible and found that the father had either abused the child or permitted the abuse. The juvenile court granted temporary custody to the Department of Social Services, which placed the child with a foster family. The juvenile court found that the father was an unfit parent who was unlikely to become a fit parent and that termination of the father’s parental rights was in the best interests of the child. The father appealed the matter, arguing before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that the termination of parental rights violated federal immigration law and international treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.