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A mother’s motion to amend language in her paternity judgment to conform with her child’s federal immigration petition requirement should have been granted, the Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled Wednesday.
According to court records, in May, Grisel Bonilla Lemus filed a paternity petition for her child, A.J.L.B., who was born in February 2013 in Honduras.
The petition alleged that Jaime Lazo Alvarenga is the child’s biological father and is identified as such on the child’s birth certificate, and that the mother and father have never resided together. It also stated that the father has not communicated with or provided financial support for the child for nine years, and his exact whereabouts are unknown.
The mother sought establishment of paternity and sole legal and physical custody of the child. At a hearing, she explained that she brought the child to the United States when he was 6 years old because it was not safe in Honduras.
The trial court entered judgment granting the mother’s petition, but the judgment did not include findings 19 and 20. Those findings in the proposed order said Lemus would be appointed sole legal and physical custody, and that the child had been abandoned by his father.
The mother filed a motion to correct error in which she asked the trial court to amend the judgment to add those findings, which are required for Special Immigrant Juvenile status.
In the motion, the mother stated that the child was working to resolve his immigration status, which included an SIJ status petition, and that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services requires that the judgment include specific language regarding certain findings.
But the trial court denied motion to correct error on the basis that neither the mother nor her counsel had requested the findings with the language needed for SIJ status in the mother’s petition or during the hearing.
Then, pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 15(B), the mother filed a motion to amend the pleadings, which the court also denied.
Lemus appealed and argued that the trial court erred in denying her motion to correct error because the requested SIJ findings were sufficiently before the court. She also asserted that the trial court erred in denying her motion to amend the pleadings because the evidence at trial supported amendment.
The Court of Appeals agreed with the mother and reversed and remanded with instructions to grant the mother’s motions and issue a new judgment with the requested SIJ findings.
Judge Terry Crone wrote the opinion for the appellate court.
Crone noted that although the final decision regarding whether a child qualifies for SIJ status is made by the federal government, the process for obtaining SIJ status requires “the collaboration of state and federal systems.”
According to Crone, the trial court’s denial of the mother’s motion was done on the basis that she never requested “the Court to make certain findings necessary to seek classification as a special immigrant juvenile in accordance with 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(27)(J).”
“Mother concedes that her petition could have been clearer but asserts that the requested SIJ findings were sufficiently before the trial court because the facts to support the SIJ findings were pled, the evidence supported the facts, and the requested findings were in the proposed order,” Crone wrote.
Agreeing, Crone pointed to In re Guardianship of Xitumul, 137 N.E.3d 945 (Ind. Ct. App. 2019), and wrote, “Like the Court in Xitumul, we conclude that the requested SIJ findings were before the court, and therefore the trial court abused its discretion by denying Mother’s motion to correct error.”
The appellate court also found that the trial court abused its discretion by denying the mother’s motion to amend the pleadings.
“The amendment would allow the petition to request relief that conforms to the evidence,” Crone wrote.
“… Although we have found that Mother’s motions should have been granted, we nevertheless believe that the better practice would have been to clearly indicate to the trial court in the petition or at the hearing that specific SIJ findings were being requested,” he added. “Obviously, that would have avoided the difficulties encountered here.”
Judges Patricia Riley and Paul Mathias concurred.
The case is In the Matter of the Paternity of A.J.L.B., a Minor, by his next friend Grisel Bonilla Lemus v. Jaime Lazo Alvarenga, 23A-JP-1436.
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