Colorlines, News Report, Posted: Oct 16, 2012

At 8am Friday morning, Felipe Montes walked out of a ground floor room at the Alleghany Inn holding the hands of his two and three-year-old sons. His oldest boy, who will soon turn five, skipped in front of his brothers and father and jumped into the back of an a county public transportation van that had just pulled into the parking lot drive the family a mile down the road to the local daycare. After dropping them off, Montes walked to the courthouse in the center of Sparta, NC, where he spent the day before a judge, and listened to lawyers litigate his family’s future.

Montes had hoped Friday would be the day he’d get his kids back, once and for all. But at 4:30 in the afternoon, the father walked out of the courtroom with his court appointed attorney and a representative of the Mexican consulate with no news to share.

Montes has been singularly focused on his three young kids since he was deported nearly two years ago for driving violations. Weeks after he was detained, the country child welfare department removed the children from the custody of Marie Montes, Felipe’s U.S. citizen wife. She struggles with mental health and substance abuse issues, and has been in and out of legal trouble. Montes has been asking that his children be sent to him in Mexico, but the county Department of Social Services refused.

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