IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 20-1636 Filed March 3, 2021 IN THE INTEREST OF D.A., Minor Child, I.A., Mother, Appellant, F.A., Father, Appellant. ________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Susan Cox, District Associate Judge. Parents separately appeal the juvenile court’s denial of the father’s motion to modify the court’s dispositional order. AFFIRMED ON BOTH APPEALS. Kelsey Knight of Carr Law Firm, P.L.C., Des Moines, for appellant mother. Jeremy Feitelson of Feitelson Law, L.L.C., West Des Moines, for appellant father. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Mary A. Triick, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. Karen A. Taylor of Taylor Law Offices, P.C., Des Moines, attorney for minor child. Lynn Vogan of Youth Law Center, Des Moines, guardian ad litem for minor child. 2 Considered by Bower, C.J., Schumacher, J., and Potterfield, S.J.* *Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2021). 3 POTTERFIELD, Senior Judge. D.A. is the teenaged child of the mother and father1; she was removed from the parents’ care in December 2019. In May 2020, the father filed a motion to modify the dispositional order, asking the court to end D.A.’s out-of-home placement and return her to the family home. The juvenile court denied the motion, and the parents separately appeal. They assert there has been a material and substantial change in circumstances and circumstances in Iowa Code section 232.103(4) (2019) exist so modification of the dispositional order is appropriate. They also contend returning D.A. to their care is in her best interests. 1 D.A. and her family are Syrian nationals who came to the United States as refugees in 2016. The parents do not speak English, and the children have sometimes been used as informal interpreters when service providers drop in. Whether due to the language barrier, lack of official paperwork such as birth certificates, or an actual intent to deceive, there are inconsistencies in the record that we cannot resolve. For instance, it is unclear whether D.A. was born in January 2004 or 2006. At one point, the court specifically corrected the record to change D.A.’s listed birth date from 2006 to 2004. But it seems D.A. continued to report her birth year as 2006, and the clinical psychologist who completed her psychological evaluation in early 2020 noted D.A. “appeared to be her stated age” of fourteen. Plus another child in the family is listed as having a birth date of May 2004. Additionally, D.A. told the same psychologist that her biological father died when she was young and the father involved in these proceedings is her stepfather. The mother denies this claim. As far as we can tell, D.A.’s statement was generally disregarded; paternity testing was not completed and everyone proceeded under the assumption the father is the biological father. We do not presume the narrative and information provided by the parents are reliable. The father pled guilty to two counts of immigration fraud in May 2018 based on providing false information as part of …
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