PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - In the blue-collar town of Toledo near Oregon's coast, Steve and Angela Brandt are dreading a knock on the door that could mean they will never again see Gabriel Allred, 2, whom they raised from infancy.

He was American-born to a Mexican father and an American mother, one a now-deported sex offender, the other a meth addict, and both stripped of parental rights.

Now the boy may be returned to Mexico, to a grandmother who didn't know until last year that he existed. The Brandts are headed to court, but in adoption matters blood ties can trump a lot.

So far they have trumped the bonding the Brandts have developed with the foster son who came to them at age 4 months.

His mother, Lindsey Allred, who is in Utah, has said her son should stay with Brandts. The father, Roberto Valente Martinez, before he left prison, agreed.

"It is interesting that both biological parents have gone public saying they want Gabriel to stay with us and be our son," Steve Brandt, a Lincoln County sheriff's deputy, said Friday. "Both did it on their own accord. We appreciate that."

The question, he said, is whether that holds weight with the state.

Oregon's Department of Human Services found Gabriel's grandmother in a farm town in the largely rural Mexican state of Puebla. She says she is eager to take him in.

Two department panels ruled that the boy should be sent to Mexico.

"The decision was based on family and cultural ties, and they count for a lot in this situation," said department spokeswoman Ann Snyder.

"When a child is free for adoption to families from other states or countries we work with our equivalent agencies ... to conduct checks. In this case everything was very positive," she said.

She said the boy's father had not contacted the grandmother, Cecilia Martinez, in years and that she had not known of his whereabouts. "She is one delighted grandmother," she said.

"The hearings carefully weighed his family culture to his current attachments, and it came out pretty close," she said. "The primary goal of the agency is to reunite families."

She said in the past seven years Oregon has placed foster children in 19 countries to relatives who expressed interest, 11 of them in Mexico.

"What's unusual here," she said, "is that all the elements are combined and that the foster parents also seek adoption. That's what's at issue."

But the Brandts don't seem convinced of the good intentions.

"He's completely bonded to us. We're all he knows - we're his family," Angela Brandt told The Associated Press Friday. "(The state) is being spiteful. They aren't looking after the best interests of the child. If they find blood, they will always go with blood."

She said if the issue had arisen much earlier, things might have been different. "But the bond has become stronger," she said. "We're his family, his culture, we're pretty important to the little guy."

On Wednesday, an attorney for the Brandts, Marcia Buckley of Newport, filed papers in Lincoln County Circuit Court arguing that the couple may not be Gabriel's biological parents but they are the psychological equivalent. Buckley asked for an order to keep the boy with the couple until the case is resolved.

Angela Brandt said she has been told Gabriel could be taken in as little as three weeks, but Snyder said it more likely would be a matter of months.

Cecilia Martinez's four children are grown, and while one landed in prison on attempted rape charges, another is a doctor and one is studying nursing.

She told The Oregonian she farms a small plot and sells clothing from her home, earning the peso equivalent of about $600 a month, above average in rural Mexico. Since Gabriel is a special-needs child because his mother used meth during her pregnancy, Martinez will be entitled to $375 a month from the state until he is 18.

But Snyder said Martinez hasn't asked for the money.

Martinez said the father won't be allowed to visit and told the Oregonian she hopes to stay in touch with the Brandts.

"All my children are grown, and Gabrielito will be like my own that I can raise again," she told the paper. She said she has filled a bedroom with toys for him.

The Brandts have raised other foster children and live on five acres with farm animals and fruit trees. They say Martinez is welcome to visit and that they'll send pictures, but they aren't giving up the custody fight.

Steve Brandt said legal and other fees are mounting beyond their means, but residents have been donating to an account at Washington Mutual Bank.

"The public wants him to stay right where he is at," he said. "People have been very generous."

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)