Arricle Summary: 3/3/08

Emotions Drove Pair in Abandonment

By Patrick MncGeeha and Daryl Khan
Published: March 3, 2008
Echoes of their own lives led the aunt of the baby girl who was dropped off at a firehouse in Queens last week and the livery cab driver who initially claimed that a stranger abandoned the baby in his car to want the child to have a better life.
They know the desperation and pain of leaving a child behind for the good of that child, because they had both left children of their own in their native Ecuador, they said on Sunday.
The aunt, Maria Siavichay, 21, a waitress who immigrated to New York last year, said the decision to hand her brother’s child, Daniella, over to firefighters had in some ways been more difficult than leaving her 4-year-old behind. She knew her daughter was safe in her grandmother’s care, Ms. Siavichay said.
“I knew when I left my daughter that I was going to see her again,” she said, “but I didn’t know if I was ever going to see my niece again.”
On Thursday morning, Ms. Siavichay had her companion, Klever Sailema, the taxi driver, take Daniella to a firehouse on 43rd Avenue in Corona.
Mr. Sailema, 44, was arrested on Saturday after the police determined that he had played a role in a scheme to seek a haven for Daniella.
Ms. Siavichay was also arrested. The police were still looking for her brother, Carlos Rodas, Daniella’s father.
Mr. Sailema and Ms. Siavichay, who were freed after their arrests, spoke during an interview in their lawyer’s office.
Mr. Rodas decided to give Daniella away because he could not care for her anymore, Mr. Sailema said.
The little girl’s teenage mother had walked out on him a week before and Mr. Rodas could no longer cope with the child, he said.
“I saw the pain Carlos was going through at the time,” Mr. Sailema said. “I was at the point of breaking down and crying as well. To see a father have to give up the thing he loves the most, as a father that destroys you.”
Mr. Sailema said he could sympathize because 21 years ago he left two small daughters in his hometown of Ambato to make his way to America.
Those daughters, now 26 and 23, live in New York now but he is estranged from them, he said.
So when Mr. Rodas and Ms. Siavichay climbed into the back seat with Daniella, he agreed to the plan that had been hatched, he said.
First, he dropped Mr. Rodas off at the construction site where he worked. Then, he drove Ms. Siavichay toward the firehouse.
But along the way, she grew increasingly worried about attracting the attention of immigration officials. So Mr. Sailema let her off at a subway station.
Ms. Siavichay hugged her niece one last time, then strapped her in with a seat belt and boarded a train for work.
“My day was really bad,” Ms. Siavichay said. “All I could do was think of my own daughter.”
Mr. Sailema said he then drove Daniella to the firehouse, believing he could simply hand her over with little or no explanation. But he then wound up telling the police that the baby had been left in his car by a stranger who got out to make a phone call and never came back.
That tale unwound quickly, and now Mr. Sailema’s livery license has been suspended, the police are searching for Mr. Rodas, and Ms. Siavichay fears that she may be sent back to Ecuador.
“We were trying to do something good, not something bad,” Mr. Sailema said. “I tried to help the dad because the dad couldn’t do anything else for the child. Maria couldn’t do anything else for the child either.”

Summary:
There was a case where two parents led by emotions of processing failure decided to abandon their daughter. The cab man found the baby later and reported it hoping the child would be taken well care of. The parents have been charged, along with the aunt of the child; who helped carry out the drop off. The parents claim to have honestly done it only for the love they have for her. They were in deep financial struggle and could not provide sufficiently for her; therefore having tried to get rid of her in such an incorrect manner. perhaps for the fear of not being able to take care of the child while being illegal and in poverty.