Mexico check girl’s DNA after US custody mixup

MORELIA, Mexico – Mexican authorities are conducting DNA tests on a girl who may be the daughter of a Texas woman after the wrong child was forcibly sent to the United States last month.

In April, police seized 14-year-old Alondra Luna Núñez inside her school and sent her to Houston after a woman had mistakenly identified her as a daughter she had not seen in eight years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF9Xse4qiDw

DNA tests conducted later in Texas showed she was the wrong girl and she was sent back to her real parents in Mexico’s central state of Guanajuato.

In a bid to avoid another embarrassing mixup, authorities in Mexico are now awaiting DNA tests on a second girl identified as Alondra.

The girl’s father took her to her paternal grandmother in the western state of Michoacán on Saturday, an official in the regional supreme court told AFP.

The father, Reynaldo Díaz, delivered the girl after reaching an agreement with the mother, Dorotea García, to “withdraw any charges against him,” the official said.

The case dates back to 2007, when Mexican authorities received García’s request for help to return her daughter, whose father brought her to the country from the United States.

“I’m happy because I will be able to see my mother,” Alondra told Univision television.

Mexican prosecutors have opened an investigation into the actions of authorities, including a judge in Michoacán who had ordered officials to send the wrong Alondra to Texas.

García mistook the Guanajuato girl for her daughter because they share a similar scar between the eyebrows.