Elian this isn't

Judge Rules for Cuban Father

Well not quite...basically what the judge said was that the father did not lose his parental rights. But now comes the tough part....does the mother's attempted suicide negate her parental rights??
This is a lot less clear than the Elian case.

If you remember the case of Elian (I'm probably spelling his name wrong), he came to America with his mother and her boyfriend but before they touched US soil his mother died. He lived with his Aunt & Uncle but the Clinton administration heard the father's petition to have his child returned and they agreed (and rightfully so...just because the mother had custody did not negate his parental rights). However it was handled very poorly with the FBI, ATF, and others under Janet Reno's command stormed into the family's home in the middle of the night/very early morning. Very bad stuff.

So now this whole issue has come to a new head....both parents are alive, the mother has custody, but by the sounds of it she is trying to allow her child to be adopted by a particular family...people who the child knows and one must assume are wonderful parents even if not legal ones. This would be cut and dry....except now the courts must wrestle with two questions:

1.Does migration to a new country terminate parental rights to the parent not migrating?
2.If it doesn't terminate the rights, then does the other parent have the right to demand the return of the child to the country of origin?

Note that I did not put custody in there-the cuban law already awarded custody to the mother as far as I can tell.