A Michigan couple has been accused of sending their adopted child to a boarding school in Jamaica that was closed amid allegations of kid abuse, then abandoning the teenager in another country for months.

Thanks to the work of kid advocates, 17-year-old Elijah Goldman was safely returned to the United States after what he says was months in Jamaica, abandoned there by his adoptive parents, Mark and Spring Goldman.

The Goldmans, a wealthy and conservative white Christian couple, adopted Elijah and his younger sister from Haiti in 2017 when he was 11, in response to the Detroit Free Press. The children lived with the Goldmans and their two biological children in a $1.7 million lakefront home in Traverse City, Michigan.

Elijah described his first years with the Goldmans as vivid, describing a nurturing and family-like experience of life during which he felt loved and welcomed. At school, he made friends and was on the track team.

“At first, my family loved me and helped me learn English and reading,” Elijah said. wrote to the Free Press. “Then I became a teenager.”

Elijah wrote that his rebellious behavior growing up caused intense family conflicts. He repeatedly bought personal cell phones without permission and uploaded pornographic images to the devices, which were eventually found by his parents. Elijah said he ran away after an argument together with his mother escalated right into a fight together with his father, during which he was beaten.

Two weeks later, the Goldmans sent Elijah to a special school for troubled boys. He attended three different boarding schools over the subsequent few years until the Goldmans finally sent him to the American Atlantis Leadership Academy in Jamaica in September 2023.

Six months later, in March 2024, the academy was forced to shut its doors after horrific allegations emerged that children at the school were beaten, waterboarded, starved and whipped. Four staff members were charged with child abuse.

Elijah said he was one in all several students who suffered horrific abuse from school staff. He said he was slashed with a razor and beaten within the back with a hammer. Other boys were stripped naked and brutally beaten, had salt rubbed into their wounds and were forced to participate in club fights for the entertainment of school staff and native police.

A month before the school was finally closed, authorities removed Elijah and 6 other American boys from the academy and placed them in Jamaican care.

The Goldmans never traveled to Jamaica to choose up their son, nor did they make arrangements for him to travel back to the U.S. They also never attended any court hearings regarding the school’s abuse allegations. Instead, Elijah was forced to live in Jamaican group homes for seven months and face those lawsuits alone.

“I appreciate them bringing me to the U.S., but they abandoned me,” Elijah told the Free Press. “They didn’t want me in their home. … And they didn’t believe me about the whole court thing … that they were abusing us. I’m strong, but it hurts.”

The school’s closure drew international attention, and youngsters’s rights activists learned of Elijah’s case, including celebrity and hotel heiress Paris Hilton, who can also be a victim of institutional child abuse. Hilton wrote to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services in May advocating for Elijah’s return to the U.S.

In the spring, Elijah also received a visit from a kid’s rights attorney who helped him arrange his return to the States.

After a 12 months of harrowing experiences abroad, the 17-year-old returned to America on September 3.

He was placed on a plane to Miami, Florida, where he met with youth rights advocates, lawyers and an American diplomat from Jamaica, but not his parents, and was left alone to navigate the pains of complicated child custody proceedings.

Although Elijah desired to return to Michigan, state authorities said that they had no legal basis to accommodate him overnight. The teen spent one night within the care of Florida Child Protective Services after which was placed on a plane to Michigan, where he met CPS staff and his adopted father, who planned to send the teenager to Utah, where he knew nobody.

Elijah rejected the plan, and his lawyers successfully placed him within the custody of Michigan Child Protective Services. According to the teenager’s lawyers, the Goldmans don’t want Elijah living with them again.

The couple must now file a proper grievance with the Family Court, with Elijah’s lawyers pursuing child abandonment claims.

As news of Elijah’s shocking story spread across the web, many wondered why the family was still allowed to maintain his younger sister and whether charges were to be expected.

“So if they are his parents (legally adopted), why haven’t they been arrested for child endangerment, abandonment, and abuse? And why do they still have his sister? Is it possible they’re in it for protection and money?” wrote an Instagram commenter.

A Traverse City woman identified by the Free Press as “Teri” has develop into Elijah’s foster mother as the teenager prepares for a sophisticated legal battle. The Goldmans didn’t object to the teenager’s latest living arrangements.

In 2023, we marked the sixtieth anniversary of the March on Washington and my father’s “I Have a Dream” speech, an anniversary that felt especially poignant at this critical moment when our democracy had reached a tipping point and a lot of what my father fought for was being eroded.

The rights that Americans hold dear are under attack across the country. Reproductive rights, the ability to be ourselves, and the very pillars of our democracy are weakening by the day. The crisis has turn out to be so severe that my daughter enjoys fewer rights today than she did when she was born 15 years ago.

It isn’t any coincidence that the erosion of our civil liberties has coincided with the rollback of voting rights in states across the country. When my father marched for equality many years ago, he understood that voting rights are a essential a part of the fight for freedom and equality. Those on the other side know this too, which is why they’ve systematically made it harder for each American to vote. Eligibility requirements, polling places, and polling hours have been rigged to prevent too many Americans from voting. In my home state of Georgia, it has even been made against the law to serve water to someone waiting in line to vote.

Our voting rights must be sacred, and any attempt to suppress or take away the right to vote have to be stopped. My father used to say, “Oppression is legislated.” Change for the higher must be legislated, not oppression. Legislate change. Legislate hope. Not hate.

That is why my wife Arndrea and I are mobilizing to demand a brand new federal election law that restores the right to vote not only as an aspiration, but as a reality, and ensures that each eligible voter, no matter race, nationality or place of residence, has the opportunity to vote and forged a ballot knowing that their vote counts.

Elections

But we don’t have to wait for Congress to act. Efforts to expand voting access are underway across the country, including the mobile voting campaign. Few efforts have the potential to impact voter turnout like mobile voting. Too many citizens are excluded from the voting booth by existing voting options—from our military members to voters with disabilities and even our youth. Mobile voting would allow all voters to exercise their most elementary democratic right using the same technology they use of their day by day lives. No more waiting in hours-long lines to get to the polls. No more busy parents carrying drained toddlers. No more young students trying to juggle school, work, and life while trying to get to the polls. And no more threats or intimidation to keep some voters from going to the polls.

Why don’t we increase voter participation to give everyone a probability to be heard? Why don’t we ease the barriers for low-income voters and help hourly staff? Why don’t we eliminate the barriers faced by disabled voters who find it incredibly difficult to get to the polls on Election Day? Shouldn’t they’ve the same right to vote as everyone else?

Every vote lost to accessibility or suppression is a loss to democracy. Expanding access is important, and evolving through technology is an indication of the times. We already spend a lot time on our smartphones—from paying bills to accessing healthcare. I’ve been banking on my phone for years, and never once has my money gone where it shouldn’t have. We know that mobile voting has security risks, identical to other voting methods. But given how embedded mobile technology tools are in our day by day lives, we also understand that these risks could be mitigated. Surely the need to protect and expand access to our democracy requires us to balance these risks and be sure that every citizen can exercise their right to vote.

Every positive change is all the time hard fought. We in Institute of Drum Majors I like to say, “Don’t give up, don’t quit, don’t give in.” My dad used to say that people and not using a vote are powerless. And one among the most significant steps we are able to take is that short step to the ballot box. Vote along with your heart and your mind, but vote in the most accessible, attainable way possible. Democracy is dependent upon it.

Vice President Harris has begun to extend her lead over former President Trump in the general public eye, in response to a poll conducted after the highly publicized September 10 debate.

poll showed Harris is leading by five points over Trump, up from just three and 4 points in the identical poll before ABC’s debate in Philadelphia. In the times since, Harris has been seen as largely winning the controversy. Her growing support reflects public opinion of her. More than 50% of respondents within the poll said they might vote for Kamala Harris if the election were held today. Only 45% said they might vote for the previous president after Tuesday’s debate.

More surprisingly, she also leads Trump amongst independents, where her support is 46% to his 40%.

The analysts wrote: “It is too early to tell whether Harris’ debate performance is a key factor in our latest head-to-head results, as our near-term trends suggest she was already gaining ground ahead of Tuesday’s televised showdown.”

The evaluation assumes Harris’ stirring debate performance will proceed to be her selling point amongst voters.

In addition to the larger poll, more direct data suggested Harris was the favourite to win the controversy after she managed to tug Trump into spreading “conspiracy theories,” shouting, and avoiding eye contact along with her. Poll respondents said she did a higher job than him discussing immigration and abortion, and he or she generally looked as if it would dominate the stage over him.

the survey was conducted just a day after the controversy and announced that he had collected data “from at least 3,317 likely voters with a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.”

Harris and Trump met for the primary time on the controversy stage in Philadelphia, a pivotal moment for the vice chairman.

Harris has brought her own policy ideas to Trump and has remained independent from President Biden.

Trump later said he would now not debate Vice President Kamala Harris.

Asset he said media: “We held two debates and since they were successful, there will be no third debate.”