Catastrophic Injustice
TRAVEL ADVISORY — Child Trafficking Network (CTN)
CATASTROPHIC INJUSTICE: JUDGE DEVON L. LOMAYESVA TERMINATED PARENTAL RIGHTS DESPITE THE BOND, DESPITE THE TRAUMA, DESPITE THE EXPERT WARNING
JUDGE DEVON L. LOMAYESVA: Service in the headline. Severance from the bench.
This was not a difficult decision. This was a gross miscarriage of justice.
The Robinson-Lopez family placed its hope in a new judge — a woman judge — a judge who had the power to look at the evidence, reject the County’s fraud, stop the suffering, and send Malaika and Xayah home.
Instead, Judge Devon L. Lomayesva terminated parental rights despite expert testimony from a neurotherapist warning that these girls share a strong bond with their mother, that continued separation has already caused catastrophic emotional and psychological harm, and that permanent severance through adoption would be catastrophic.
The evidence was not missing. The bond was there. The photographs were there. The testimony was there. The crying was there. The screaming was there. The children’s trauma was right in front of the court. And still, Judge Lomayesva terminated.
For two years, San Diego County pushed the lie that there was “no bond.” That lie collapsed in court. A neurotherapist testified to the bond. Evelyn Lopez submitted photographs from birth to today. The mother’s attorney personally visited the girls and confirmed the bond. The children confirmed the bond every time they cried, screamed, reached, clung, begged, and pleaded to go with their mother.
The County’s “no bond” narrative was exposed — and the court terminated anyway.
That is what makes this ruling so vicious. This was not a ruling made because there was no bond. This was a ruling made despite the bond. This was not a ruling made because the children were not suffering. This was a ruling made despite the suffering. This was not a ruling made because adoption would be harmless. This was a ruling made despite expert testimony warning that permanent severance would be catastrophic.
The court’s reasoning made the injustice even uglier. After all the evidence, testimony, photographs, and warnings of catastrophic emotional and psychological harm, the ruling still came down to this: the girls are “adoptable,” and the court questioned whether returning them would be stable.
That word — adoptable — became the magic word. Adoptable, as if that erases a mother. Adoptable, as if that erases siblings. Adoptable, as if that erases grandparents. Adoptable, as if that erases photographs, testimony, history, blood, memory, love, and trauma. Adoptable, as if two crying, bonded, traumatized children are property to be transferred instead of daughters to be returned.
Malaika and Xayah are not inventory. They are not case numbers. They are not adoption trophies. They are two sisters with a mother, siblings, grandparents, friends, and an entire family/community waiting for them.
Evelyn Lopez has her twins. She has a stable home. She provides the basic necessities every parent is expected to provide: food, shelter, clothing, and medical care. That should have ended the County’s stability argument. These girls have a mother, siblings, grandparents, family support, and a proven bond that is now in the court record. They know their mother. They love their mother. They cry for their mother. They suffer without their mother. The County did not prove instability. It used “adoptable” as a weapon to erase a living family.
San Diego County did not prove there was no bond. San Diego County got caught lying about the bond. And Judge Lomayesva still handed them termination.
According to testimony, social workers were shutting down their laptops five minutes before visits ended — right before the children broke down crying and screaming to go with their mother. That means the most important trauma, the clearest trauma, the trauma that exposed the County’s lie, was not being properly documented.
That is not child protection. That is concealment. That is a system protecting its own false narrative instead of protecting children.
San Diego County spent two years manufacturing a record. It isolated the mother. It attacked the paternal family. It fought an RFA-approved grandfather and household. It buried trauma. It ignored medical concerns. It covered up sexual-abuse concerns. It retaliated against protected speech. It punished exposure. It trafficked these children internationally to the Dominican Republic. Then it walked into court and asked for the final act: permanent legal severance.
And Judge Lomayesva gave it to them.
This was not justice. This was not protection. This was not child welfare. This was family destruction under color of authority.
Judge Lomayesva had the chance to become the judge who stopped the suffering. Instead, she became the judge who terminated parental rights despite the bond, despite the trauma, despite the photographs, despite the testimony, despite the warnings, and despite expert testimony that adoption would be catastrophic.
That decision now belongs to the record. It belongs to the appeal. It belongs to the public. It belongs to every official who looked away while two little girls were psychologically and emotionally destroyed by a system that calls destruction “permanency.”
The truth is simple: San Diego County did not terminate parental rights because there was no bond. The bond was proven. The trauma was proven. The harm was proven. The warning was given. Judge Devon L. Lomayesva terminated anyway.
Now her ruling becomes part of the public story San Diego County tried so desperately to bury.
Appeal. Exposure. Record. Evidence. Truth.
Bring Malaika and Xayah home.
WARNING TO PROSPECTIVE ADOPTIVE PARENTS
Malaika and Xayah are not abandoned children. They were forcibly taken by San Diego County from a family that loves them and has never stopped fighting for them.
These girls have a mother, father, siblings, grandparents, and a family/community waiting for them. They were not abused by their family. The trauma, abuse concerns, covered-up sexual-abuse concerns, and catastrophic emotional damage began after San Diego County took control of their lives.
These children have already been through hell: forced separation, international trafficking to the Dominican Republic, documented trauma, screaming, crying, and repeated pleas to go home.
Anyone attempting to adopt them is not stepping into a clean adoption. You are stepping into a documented civil-rights scandal, a trauma record, and a family that will continue fighting publicly, legally, and relentlessly for their return.
These children are loved. These children are claimed. These children belong home.
— The Collective for Family Justice & Human Rights
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