Community Corner

Karina Garcia, Part III: Reintegration to America

As soon as Karina stepped off the plane, her father knew something was very wrong. She could no longer speak any English and her father said she was very untrusting and confused.

Editor's Note: This is the third part in an exclusive, three-part series in which Fox Point's Dr. Moises Garcia talks about his 4-year fight to successfully recover his kidnapped daughter, Karina, from Japan. This series chronicles the abduction, Moises' battle to maintain a relationship with her from more than 6,000 miles away, and takes a look at her today, age 10, as she celebrates her first birthday back in America since the abduction. 

As many 10-year-old girls begin to crush on boys, have slumber parties and enter the "tween" years, Karina Garcia is trying to decide the truth behind why she was kidnapped at age 5 and who in her family really does love her. 

Karina was kidnapped by her mother, Emiko Inoue, in 2008 and taken from her Fox Point home to Inoue's native Japan on the day that her father, Dr. Moises Garcia, was having divorce papers served.

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Garcia fought for a year to win sole custody of the child through American courts. But it would be months before he would see his daughter again, and nearly three years before she would set foot on American soil.

In December 2011, Inoue returned alone to the United States to renew her green card in Hawaii. 

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However, Garcia's attorney, Jim Sakar, was prepared. He had known she would have to come back to the United States so he sought an arrest warrant for custody interference. Inoue was immediately arrested and extradited to Wisconsin when she landed in Hawaii. 

Inoue sat in jail for nearly eight months before she finally agreed to have Karina sent back to the U.S. At that time, she had just been charged with a second offense for custody interference. Both are felony charges and with U.S. court orders. She wears a GPS monitoring device and is petitioning to have it removed. 

"This is not your normal, run-of-the-mill, custody battle," Sakar said. "This is a foreign national who has abducted, with an improperly-issued passport, a child that we were lucky as hell to get back. The stars just aligned. And if she re-abducts her, we'll never see her again. I guarantee you (we won't) because there's 320 American kids there right now. It's frustrating."

Inoue's U.S. attorney, Gerald Boyle, did not return a phone message left on Tuesday requesting comment.

Reintegrating to American life

Karina celebrated her 10th birthday Monday surrounded by 15 of her friends near her Fox Point home. But amid her smiles is a struggle to adapt to a whole new life. She had completely forgotten the English she'd learned before the abduction, Garcia said, and isn't quite sure who to trust.

"There are days when she gets sad, when she starts thinking about how much damage was done by people that she loves (like) her grandparents," Garcia said. "Like how some of the toys that I gave to her in the only visit allowed in March 2009 where lost or hidden."

And while Karina still has nightmares about being re-abducted, she does want to continue a relationship with her Japanese family and friends, Garcia said. She Skypes and sends letters to Japan and gets bi-weekly packages from her grandparents that usually have Japanese comics, candies and Japanese toys inside he said. 

"She talks about Japan all the time and I encourage this as it is part of her heritage," Gracia said. "We have a game that when we want to tell a secret, we speak in Japanese so nobody understands."

And while it's a daily struggle to regain her trust, Garcia said she's nearly back to normal, calling him "Papa" again.  

"I knew that deep inside there was this little, afraid girl that was missing her dad," Garcia said. "I love her deeply."


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