All that kept Alondra Luna Nunez from her family was a misidentified scar on her nose.
The 14-year-old Mexican girl was pulled out of school by agents assigned to Interpol April 16 after a Houston woman, Dorotea Garcia, claimed Luna was her daughter. Video of the girl being forced out of her middle school class drew controversy after it went viral.
In the video, Luna is seen struggling with federal police officers as they pull her away from school doors and into the back seat of a car. She screams "I am not your daughter" at a women later identified as Garcia.
Despite mountains of proof presented by her parents, Judge Cinthia Elodia Mercado ruled that Luna belonged to Garcia and subsequently sent her to live in the United States.
"Our only job is to resolve whether the child needs to be returned or not," Mercado said. The judge later added, "We, as judges, are only responsible to resolve the case with respect to recovering the minor."
"We don't do investigations or make inquiries."
Among the evidence presented was a birth certificate, baptismal records, family photographs, and testimony that the scar on Luna's nose did not resemble that of the missing girl, who has a scar on her eyebrow.
"I mean all this was stirred up over that," Luna told The Associated Press upon her return to Mexico on Wednesday. "The judge said, 'No, it's her,' and that was that."
According to a statement released by the Mexican Foreign Ministry upon Luna's release, the ordeal began when Garcia identified Luna as her estranged daughter, the one Reynaldo Diaz kidnapped in 2007. The weeklong saga cultivated when a DNA test revealed Luna was not related to Garcia.
"The people who know me don't need me to give an explanation for what happened," Garcia said after confirming the DNA results. "Whatever explanation I give won't change the minds of people in Mexico or here."
In an interview with El Universal TV, Garcia said it was never her intention to hurt the Luna family, adding that she didn't play a role in the manner Interpol captured Luna. Garcia urges Diaz to return her daughter, or at the very least let the girl know her mother is alive.
As for Judge Mercado, she said it wasn't within her authority to order a DNA test as Luna had requested. It is unclear how she was initially identified as Garcia's missing daughter, nor how Garcia misidentified Luna on a bus ride to Texas.
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