Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Afghan Girl's Adoption

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a U.S. Marine and his wife will retain custody of an Afghan girl they adopted, upholding a lower court order despite challenges from the child's Afghan relatives. The 4-3 decision ends a protracted legal dispute that began after the child was injured in a 2019 U.S. military raid in Afghanistan and later reunited with family there under international protocols.

The child, now around 7 years old, was wounded during a September 2019 raid on a rural compound targeting terrorists who had entered Afghanistan from a neighboring country. Her parents and siblings were killed in the operation, and U.S. soldiers transported her to a military base hospital for treatment. Initial efforts by some service members sought to bring her to the United States, citing questions about her nationality. However, the State Department, during the first Trump administration, determined that international law required coordination with the Afghan government and the International Committee of the Red Cross to reunite her with surviving relatives.

Afghan authorities vetted a man claiming to be her uncle, and the U.S. government facilitated her placement with...