It’s a case of mistaken identity that reached international proportions.
A 14-year-old girl was returned to Mexico from Texas on Wednesday after DNA tests showed she’s not related to a woman who claimed the teenager was her daughter.
Mexican federal police seized Alondra Luna Nuñez on Friday in the colonial city of Guanajuato, in central Mexico, believing she was the daughter of a Mexican national living in Houston.
Several videos show the moment the girl was taken out of her middle school. In the footage, Alondra appears terrified, screaming at the top of her lungs and desperately trying to free herself from officers who are dragging her out of the building.
After a struggle that lasted several minutes, the 14-year-old was put inside a federal police truck that sped away as witnesses, including the teenager’s aunt, watched and recorded.
According to Mexican authorities, the woman in Houston claimed in a 2007 petition that her daughter had been illegally taken to Mexico by her biological father without her consent.
According to a statement from the Mexican Foreign Ministry, the woman had recently traveled to Guanajuato and seen her daughter there.
“Derived on this information … and in compliance with international law … the judge in charge of the case asked Interpol to intervene to make the girl appear at a hearing in which the court would confirm her identity,” the statement said.
But what happened next puzzled both Alondra’s family and Mexican public opinion: The teenager was sent to the United States before her identify was positively confirmed.
Once in Houston, and with questions about her identity being raised by the girl’s biological parents, the Mexican Consulate in that city ordered DNA testing. The results confirmed that Alondra is not the daughter of the Houston woman.
“I will have my girl at home. We hope she’s OK. We are taking action on the matter,” Alondra’s mother — Susana Nuñez — told Milenio Television. “They stole my child.”
