LOGAN, UTAH — President Donald Trump's administration sent a government plane to Cuba to return a 10-year-old from Utah at the center of a custody dispute involving the child's gender identity. The Department of Justice aircraft was used in a parental kidnapping investigation that resulted in the arrests of Rose Inessa-Ethington, a transgender woman, and her partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, on charges of international parental kidnapping.

Rose Inessa-Ethington is accused of taking the child to Cuba without the permission of the biological mother. Federal and state authorities sought the return of the child after a family member expressed concern that Inessa-Ethington went to Havana to obtain gender transition surgery for the child.

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Utah, the couple traveled with the 10-year-old and Blue Inessa-Ethington's 3-year-old child to Canada in late March, ostensibly for a camping trip. After telling the child's mother they had arrived in Canada, the two adults turned off their phones. They flew from Vancouver to Mexico and then to Cuba on April 1.

Blue Inessa-Ethington withdrew $10,000 from her checking account before leaving. Agents found a note at the couple's home with instructions from a mental health therapist in Washington, D.C., to send the therapist $10,000, along with instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children. The note did not mention Cuba.

The search began on April 3 when the child was not returned to the mother in Utah as scheduled, according to court documents. The mother filed a missing-person report with police in Logan, Utah. A Utah state judge ordered the return of the child to the mother on April 13. Three days later, a federal magistrate judge issued an arrest warrant for the couple, and Cuban law enforcement located the group the same day.

Cuban authorities deported the group to the U.S. aboard the government plane Monday, and the defendants were arraigned in federal court in Richmond, Virginia. The 10-year-old was returned to the biological mother. The FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Utah declined to say what happened to the 3-year-old.

Logan City Police Chief Jeff Simmons said his department's initial focus was on custodial interference allegations and that investigators did not learn until later about concerns over gender-affirming surgery. "They just had the concern about it, no actual physical evidence," Sgt. Brandon Bevan said of the surgery allegations.

Gender-affirming surgery is rare among U.S. children, and fewer than one in 1,000 U.S. adolescents receive gender-affirming medications such as hormones or puberty blockers. Guidance from several major medical organizations calls for caution around surgery for minors and says decisions about treatments are case-by-case. In Cuba, such surgeries are banned for minors and are only performed for adult Cuban citizens through the public health system, requiring authorization by a medical commission after a comprehensive review of the patient's file, a process that often takes years. The Trump administration moved in December to cut off gender-affirming care for minors, prompting a third of states to sue.