Who Is This Boy's Mother?

The woman had abandoned the boy, leaving him with her parents in a remote village in Thailand--until she needed money. Then, her mother said, "she came out of the blue and told me that she would give him away." For a price: $260. And that was how two-year-old Phanupong Khaisri ended up in the U.S. He was a prop in the arms of a couple who had to look like a family: the man was part of an international prostitution ring, the woman an indentured servant he was smuggling into the U.S. Caught by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the Los Angeles International Airport on April 11, the adults were swiftly deported. The INS was about to send the boy back too when the local Thai community got wind of the case. Who, they demanded, would get custody? Apparently, the woman who sold him.

Raising an outcry (and images of Elian Gonzalez), the Thai community successfully sued to stay the INS's hand. "No investigation had been made as to who was the rightful custodian," says Chanchanit Martorell of the Thai Community Development Center. "What was the rush?" Meanwhile, the boy's paternal grandparents have applied for U.S. visas to claim him. His mother is now the most scorned woman in Thailand. After saying she knew nothing of the smuggling, Tabtim Kaewtaengjan tearily confessed to reporters that she was an unfit mother. Her son, it turns out, had been used twice before on smuggling trips. In L.A., at first, "he was sick and scared. He would sleep 45 minutes at a time and wouldn't let us turn the lights off," says Jennifer Stanger of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. "Now he plays hide 'n' seek." He's been toyed with enough.