Please Support Our Fund for Little "Got"


The Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) and the Thai Community Development Center (Thai CDC) are asking for the public's help to support the day-to-day care and medical needs of "Got," the Thai boy who made recent international headline news after U.S. immigration officials were prevented from deporting him to Thailand without legal redress. The two-year-old child had been used as a "human prop" in a scheme to traffic women into the U.S. for indentured servitude. The child was detained at Los Angeles International Airport in the company of a man and a woman posing as a family traveling on vacation. Without family in the United States, a mother who herself was a young victim of trafficking and unable to care for the child, and a father who is now deceased, little Got was placed under the care of Thai CDC soon after his arrival in the United States. We will never know the extent of the psychological and emotional damage that this traumatic experience has had on little Got. When Got first came into our care, he had possibly been drugged and was very sickly, suffering from a severe ear infection, respiratory problems, skin rashes, a high fever and possibly recovering from chicken pox. Your contributions to Got's Fund can help us in providing him with daily care and long-term medical care. Legal assistance has been retained on his behalf from the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law to prevent the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from deporting Got back to Thailand. Got has been in legal "limbo" since last October, and we are awaiting a decision about his asylum application from the INS. In the meantime, he has been attending preschool, has grown several inches and gained five pounds. However, community support is still needed to sustain legal efforts on his behalf. In the meantime, Thai CDC has been granted legal custody of the child by the federal court. Your contributions will help us with much needed funds to maintain his care and support his legal defense.