PROVIDENCE — Rosalia Lopez-Navor entered the United States illegally from Mexico in 2003, bringing her two-year-old son and the old dream of generations of immigrants: starting a new life in America.

She landed in Rhode Island, where her dream was shattered and chaos enveloped her life.

Now, a recent Rhode Island Supreme Court decision has cost Lopez-Navor her two children.

She came to Rhode Island via the Arizona border to join her boyfriend, Raul DeRosas-Quintero, who was then living illegally in Rhode Island.

In testimony in Rhode Island Family Court, Lopez-Navor said she met DeRosas-Quintero when she was 15 and he was 22. DeRosas-Quintero left Mexico in January 2001, and Lopez-Navor stayed in Mexico, pregnant with his child.

In August 2003, Lopez-Navor, with the boy she named Alexis, followed her boyfriend to Rhode Island.

DeRosas-Quintero paid “coyotes” — agents who, for a price, lead illegal immigrants over the U.S. border. Lopez-Navor climbed into a van and, with about a dozen others, rode from Arizona to Rhode Island, sleeping in the van and stopping only for food.

She and her boyfriend settled in an apartment at 119 Sumter St. in Providence’s Elmwood neighborhood.

In court testimony later, Lopez-Navor said she came to the U.S. because she “had many illusions of having a family of my own and being with the father of my children.”

The couple’s reunification soon resulted in a second pregnancy. Court records show that Lopez-Navor was about 10 weeks pregnant on Oct. 30, 2003, when she was hospitalized at Women & Infants Hospital for a kidney infection.

When her son came to visit her at the hospital, nurses noticed the boy had bruises and slap marks on his body, cuts to his inner lips, bruises and bite marks on his buttocks and upper thighs, lacerations on both ankles and a laceration on his penis.

The Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth and Families was contacted, and Alexis was placed in temporary state custody. The DCYF investigation also revealed that both DeRosas-Quintero and Lopez- Navor were in the U.S. illegally. DeRosas-Quintero was deported in February 2004, and a pregnant Lopez-Navor was detained and then released to live in a women’s shelter in Boston.

When her second child, Victoria, was born on June 16, 2004, DCYF placed the infant in temporary custody in Rhode Island because the brother was already in state custody there.

District Court in Rhode Island then convicted Lopez-Navor on felony charges of “cruelty to and neglect of” Alexis, her abused son. A DCYF investigation disclosed that the boyfriend had abused the son.

DCYF decided that placing the children with Lopez-Navor’s family in Mexico was not a “viable option” because the Rhode Island child welfare agency could not guarantee that the children would be protected from the boyfriend.

A Family Court judge decided in November 2004 that Lopez-Navor was an “unfit parent.” She was deported to Mexico after the felony and the children were placed permanently in state custody, with foster parents state officials decline to name.

In a decision written recently by Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg, a unanimous state Supreme Court said, “We begin our discussion by recognizing … the difficult and complex issues involving immigration, criminal abuse, and the potential for grave injury to Victoria, similar to what her brother Alexis had suffered at the hands of their father.”

“The trial justice was faced with a young woman who entered the United States illegally, without notice to her family, and who then failed to protect her child in face of horrific abuse and continually lied to protect the abuser,” the court stated.

Milan Azar, Lopez-Navor’s lawyer, said the case still haunts him. “In all my years as a lawyer, very few cases really stick with me but this one does. It was very sad.”

Kevin Aucoin, chief legal counsel for DCYF, acknowledged that it is an emotionally wrenching case. “It certainly is a tragic case.

“But this is a case where DCYF’s paramount concern had to do with the safety of the children, Alexis and Victoria,” said Aucoin.

smackay@projo.com