Nunu Sung being interviewed at the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton on Aug. 11, 2011. (Chuck Berman, Chicago Tribune)
The Myanmar immigrant who gave birth to her son outside a Wheaton apartment building more than three years ago, then fought an unsuccessful custody fight, has been released from federal detention.
Attorneys said Nunu Sung, 28, has been living quietly with relatives in the Chicago area since mid-November, when federal immigration authorities declined to appeal a court ruling that allows her to remain in America but blocks her path to citizenship.
"She wants to improve her English, get a job and learn how to drive," Dayna Wheatley, a West Chicago immigration attorney, said recently.
Sung's future will not include a life with her son. A DuPage County judge terminated her parental rights this year, a decision affirmed by an appeals court in July. The Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.
In June 2009, Sung delivered her child outside the apartments where her cousin lived and where Sung had been staying in the final days of her pregnancy.
Sung, who declined to be interviewed, had come to America via Malaysia from her native Myanmar in 2007, seeking relief from the oppression that members of her Chin minority group face in the former Burma. She settled in Texas and became pregnant by a man who would not acknowledge his paternity, she said.
Keeping her pregnancy secret out of what she said was shame, Sung traveled to Wheaton. She delivered her son outside and alone, placing the infant under a nearby bush, then returning to her cousin's apartment.
A neighbor found the child, suffering from hypothermia; police quickly determined that Sung was the mother.
She later pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for initially denying that she was the mother and received a prison sentence. The boy, who required a 12-day hospital stay, was placed with a foster family.
While Sung was serving her sentence, a court-appointed attorney for the child initiated proceedings to end Sung's custody.
That sparked a legal fight by her lawyers, who said her parental rights were protected by the terms of her guilty plea. At the hearings, Sung said she planned to retrieve her son, and her lawyers argued that her actions were mitigated by extensive blood loss during birth and her cultural dishonor of being an unwed mother.
But two courts ruled against Sung.
Sung was released from prison in January but was immediately taken into custody by federal immigrations officials while the courts determined whether she should be deported.
On Oct. 31, a judge ruled that Sung, who was in America legally, qualified for a status that would allow her to remain in the U.S. indefinitely. The ruling blocks her from ever becoming an American citizen.
The foster family that has raised the boy, now 31/2 years old, is in the process of adopting him, their attorney, Chuck Rohde, said this week.
"He's looking forward to Christmas with his parents like any other child his age might be," Rohde said.
Rather than the condemnation she once feared, Sung has found support from her Chin community. The Chin church in Wheaton recently held a service to celebrate Sung's release, said one of her lawyers, Jennifer Wiesner.
Sung, Wiesner said, is a different person from the frightened young woman who gave birth alone.
"She's learned a lot about shame and how in America you can get help if you ask — that shame comes second to asking for help," Wiesner said.