Kyle Adler, a 36-year-old Chilean American, was reunited with his birth mother Ana Maria Navarrete after discovering he was stolen as a baby during Chile's Pinochet dictatorship. Their meeting highlights the ongoing trauma of thousands of illegal adoptions.
Kyle Adler, a 36-year-old Chile an American, grew up in the United States knowing he was adopted. But the discovery that he was stolen from his Chile an mother as a baby came as a shock, sparking an identity crisis that lasted years.
That journey culminated earlier this year in an emotional reunion with his biological mother, Ana Maria Navarrete, in Santiago, Chile.
'It’s been so eye-opening to see who my people are,' Adler said. 'I feel the love, I feel the compassion, the care — it’s nice to have a family again. ' Adopted by an American family when he was 9 months old, Adler is one of thousands of children who were stolen from Chilean families during the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Many were taken from poor and Indigenous families and sold for adoption abroad. Organizations like Nos Buscamos have helped hundreds of adoptees reunite with their birth families through DNA tracing and investigative work. Adler’s biological mother, Ana Maria Navarrete, was a 19-year-old single mother working nights at a fish shop in Coronel, a seaside city south of Santiago. She had named him Marcos Antonio Navarrete.
Unable to afford childcare, she hired a woman to look after him. One day, the caregiver told her the baby had been taken by an American couple after a local priest arranged an adoption.
'And she let them have him,' Navarrete told the Associated Press, still furious and ashamed. A police investigator suggested the baby was likely taken as part of a counterfeit adoption network involving adoption agencies, immigration officials, and even doctors. No one was held accountable, and Navarrete said 'those years afterward were some of the worst years of my life.
' Adler’s adoptive parents, Mike and Connie Adler, died in 2022. He believes they did not know the circumstances of his adoption. After their deaths, he began searching for his birth mother, eventually finding her through a Facebook group run by Nos Buscamos. The reunion, captured in photos by the Associated Press, shows Adler embracing Navarrete.
The government estimates more than 20,000 children were stolen during the Pinochet regime. Constanza Del Rio, founder of Nos Buscamos, said justice for the poor and Indigenous was nonexistent then and remains elusive. Jimmy Lippert Thyden González, a human rights lawyer who was also illegally adopted, called it 'an effort to eliminate and eradicate the poor class.
' For Adler, meeting his birth mother and extended family has been transformative. 'Suddenly now I found myself where I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was adopted and at that point, I was just like, I need to find my mom,' he said. Now, he feels he has a family again
Chile Illegal Adoption Pinochet Reunion DNA Tracing
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Chilean American Reunited with Birth Mother After Discovering He Was Stolen as a BabyKyle Adler, a 36-year-old Chilean American who was taken from his family at nine months old and illegally adopted, embraces his birth mother, Ana Maria Navarrete, after traveling from the U.S. to meet her for the first time, in Santiago, Chile, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. Kyle Adler’s discovery that he was stolen from his Chilean mother as a baby came as a shock, sparking an identity crisis that lasted years and led to a reunion with his biological mother earlier this year. Kyle Adler believes neither of his adoptive parents knew the circumstances surrounding his adoption.
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