A 6-year-old Dalton girl is missing, and authorities believe she's somewhere in Mexico.

Her dad won sole custody after an intense legal battle, but it was too late. All evidence points to the mom having fled to Mexico.

Missing posters of 6-year-old Anjalayiah Hicks are fresh off the printer from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Her dad, Shundy Hicks, is working with Dalton investigators and lawyers, to get her back where she's legally supposed to be.

The legal battle reportedly began when the mom bragged about her new husband, who's in this county illegally, adopting her without him knowing.

A judge overturned the adoption. The new husband, Rigoberto Reyes-Rios, was deported to Mexico. Then rumors that the  mom, Brandi Reyes-Rios, was plotting to follow him there started seeming real. The girl reportedly told her dad she was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and there were boxes everywhere.

Next, they stopped showing up for visitation. Hicks went to court to gain sole custody and won, but Brandi didn't show.

A family member reported her abandoned car at a rest area.

He got a court order for the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office to enter Anjalayiah in the national missing persons registry. Sheriff Scott Chitwood says it's a complicated case, but also believes she's in Mexico.

There is an arrest order out for the mom, but… "Everybody's hands are tied until she returns to the U.S. or to somewhere that we can locate her," Whitfield County Sheriff Scott Chitwood said.

Sheriff Chitwood says Hicks has done everything possible to find her– constantly bringing in new details that he's tracked down himself. Now he's sending off a Hague application.

Mexico and the U.S. are both signatories of the Hague Convention, which provides a means for returning children from another country when there's been a parental abduction.

If you know any info on where Anjalayiah might be, call the Whitfield County Sheriff's Office.