Why did a Clay County judge terminate parental rights of immigrant mother from Kenya?
Maria Samantha Mungai is afraid she will never see her 7-year-old daughter again. The 26-year-old immigrant from Kenya last visited her child more than a year ago.
A Clay County circuit court judge terminated Mungai’s parental rights in 2019 after a years-long battle over who was best-equipped to raise the child.
Mungai’s daughter was placed with a foster family in November 2018, and has been there since. A permanency review hearing is scheduled for Thursday, according to court documents obtained by The Star.
Mungai is not allowed to participate. Neither are Mungai’s cousin and her husband, Eddah and Brian Malicot, who want to foster the child.
The legal saga began more than three years ago when Mungai’s then-4-year-old daughter was placed in protective custody. The child was found home alone while her mother was working an overnight shift as a dancer.
Soon after, the child was deemed a ward of the court.
Parameters were set forth for Mungai to reunify with her daughter. Most were reasonable. But other requirements were more difficult for Mungai to meet.
Losing parental rights to a child is akin to a civil death penalty, Mungai was once told. Reunification with her daughter has always been the goal.
So, why did Clay County Circuit Court Judge Kathryn Elizabeth Davis, on the recommendation of Clay County Deputy Juvenile Officer Heather Kindle, terminate Mungai’s rights to raise her child?
Neither Davis or Kindle responded to an inquiry from The Star. Kindle’s supervisor wrote in an email that “the Juvenile Office and its employees do not share information or answer questions about confidential juvenile cases to anyone that is not a party to the case.”
Request to Missouri Supreme Court denied
Mungai had taken some of the required steps to regain custody when Kindle filed the termination petition last year.
Paemon Aramjoo, Mungai’s court-appointed attorney, asked the Missouri Supreme Court to hear the case after the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, confirmed the lower court’s ruling. That request was recently denied.
Evidence introduced by the state was insufficient to support termination, Aramjoo argued in court documents. Mungai was making significant progress to reunify with her daughter, he wrote.
The appeals court disagreed.
Aramjoo did not reply to messages seeking comment.
Testimony presented before Davis in circuit court contradicts assessment files produced by the state, court records indicate. On more than one occasion, caseworkers praised Mungai for taking the steps to meet the requirements set out for her, but Kindle recommended the termination process begin anyway, court records show.
Mungai was gainfully employed, had a stable place to live, and was drug- and alcohol-free at the time, according to court records. Mungai appeared to have a good relationship with her child, whose natural father is no longer in the child’s life, Kindle wrote in court papers dated April 2, 2019.
“The child is extremely excited to see her mother and disappointed when the visits do not happen,” she wrote.
Questions remain as to why a juvenile officer or a caseworker would praise a parent for their effort, yet still seek to revoke their rights as a guardian.
“It’s more than just unfair,” Mungai said.
Mungai hasn’t seen her daughter since October 2019.
Since March, the Malicot family has been allowed supervised virtual visits with their younger relative. Mungai’s child and the Malicot’s 6-year-old daughter get along well, the family says.
They have voiced concerns about the potential harmful effects of permanently placing the young child in a home with people who don’t look like her. There are also cultural and social factors to consider.
Eddah Malicot is Kenyan, and Brian Malicot is white. Mungai is Kenyan, and her 7-year-old daughter was born in the U.S.
The prospective parents are white, Mungai says.
The child told a family therapist she purposely cut her own finger because she hates herself and that no one is like her, court records show.
“She is having self-esteem issues,” Eddah Malicot said. “She is having social identification issues. How self assuring can (a white family) be to this child?
Court records show that Kindle took great interest in how Mungai arrived in the United States as a Dreamer in 2004 and was very critical of her distant relationship with relatives such as Eddah.
Daughter inexcusably left alone at home
In July 2017, Mungai made an inexcusable mistake when she headed to work as a dancer one night. She never should have left her young daughter home alone under any circumstances.
A concerned neighbor phoned police around 11 p.m. that evening, court records show. The child was placed in protective custody about 1:30 a.m. and made a ward of the court two months later.
Almost immediately, Mungai admitted to investigators what she’d done.
Although Kindle officially filed the termination petition in February of 2019, the foster family was already being considered in November of 2018 as an alternative source for placement, according to court records.
Mungai now lives in a two-bedroom townhouse with a finished basement in Lenexa. She has a son, born two years ago. Both her children know and miss each other, Mungai said. There have been no issues with the younger child, according to visits conducted by child welfare workers with KVC Health Systems in Kansas.
So how is Mungai fit to raise one of her children but not the other?
“After owning up to the mistake that led to this, it still wasn’t enough for them to the point where they promised my child to a family,” Mungai said. “It’s not right. It’s not right at all.”
Clay County officials used every misstep to paint the Mungai in a bad light, she said. Mungai failed to complete a parenting class, and she did not complete a mental health assessment, another stipulation imposed on her by authorities.
As an immigrant from Kenya, Mungai did not qualify for medical assistance, and budget constraints prevented Clay County officials from paying for the parenting class or the mental health evaluation.
“And I couldn’t afford it out of pocket,” Mungai said.
Why would state officials penalize a single mother struggling to make ends meet? If reunification was the goal, Mungai should have instead been offered assistance to obtain the necessary evaluations.
Mother a victim of domestic abuse
Mungai had previously had warrants out for her arrest, but they had been cleared when the termination process began. A municipal charge of endangering the welfare of a child related to her daughter’s removal from the home was later dropped, according to court records.
She was also a victim of domestic violence. Kindle argued the living situation with Mungai’s then-fiance was a concern, court records show. Mungai broke off the engagement and had the man removed from the home last year. He has not returned.
“Officials of the state are supposed to protect children and serve justice,” Mungai said. “Where’s the justice in this case?”
Reunifying a child with their parents is always the goal, child welfare advocates say. The priority should always be with the immediate family as a potential placement home. If there’s a fit and willing relative, the child should be placed with them, advocates contend.
Mungai has exhausted every appeal to reunify with her child and has come up short. The only chance she has to maintain a close relationship with her daughter is for Davis, the Clay County judge, to consider the Malicot family for placement.
But Mungai and the Malicot family are losing hope. In the courts and in the child welfare system, they have encountered one roadblock after another, despite Mungai’s documented progress and the Malicots’ willingness to foster the 7-year-old child.
To be sure, Mungai has made mistakes in the past. But now that she has built a more stable life for her family, is there no opportunity for redemption?
The hearing is set for Thursday, and Mungai can only hope that the judge will consider this important question: How is isolating a little girl from her family in the best interest of the child?
This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Why did a Clay County judge terminate parental rights of immigrant mother from Kenya?."
