International child custody rights and battles

Here are 21 strategies to stop your ex spouse from leaving the country with your children. When your children are taken overseas, you are prevented from frequent visitations, and your parental rights are denied. Use these techniques to fight and right international child custody disputes.

1. Obtain a Federal UFAP Warrant when you file felony charges. Ask your prosecutor to apply for a federal Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution warrant.

3. If your former partner's traveling with his/her foreign passport or is a dual national, you'll have to approach the foreign consulate or embassy. They may not honor U.S. court custody orders or obey any U.S. court orders involving their own nationals. It depends on the country.

4. Once your former spouse's U.S. passport is revoked, he or she becomes an undocumented alien in a foreign nation. The foreign government may soon deport or contact an undocumented alien.

5. If you can't get a UFAP warrant, you can have your former partner's passport revoked if the holder of the passport is subject to a criminal court order, condition of probation, or parole. All these conditions forbid departure from the U.S. If your partner's in violation, he or she could be subject to a provision of the Fugitive Felon Act.

6. Visit the Immigration and Naturalization Department (INS). If your former spouse returns to the U.S. leaving the children abroad for his/her parents to raise in the foreign culture, have an officer from the INS access computers at border checkpoints with the national Crime Information Center (NCIC) Wanted Person File.

You may write to INS at 425 I St., NW, Washington, DC 20536. Ask the INS whether the circumstances under which your former spouses "green card" (now rose in color) or work permit may be revoked or suspended apply to the abductor.

7. If you can get a state or federal felony warrant, which is entered into the NCIC, the INS could be asked to arrest the abductor parent when he or she returns to the U.S. Ask your police investigator to enter the abducting parent's name into the INS "Lookout Book."

8. Pursue international extradition. If state felony charges were issued against your ex-partner, ask your local prosecutor to extradite. Your local prosecuting attorney may call or write to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Criminal Division, Office Of International Affairs, 1400 New York Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20030,(202)786-3505. A renegotiation of criminal extradition treaties between the U.S.and United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada included parental abduction as an internationally extraditable crime.

9. After you extradite your partner, be aware he or she may still keep the children in hiding with relatives or friends in the foreign country.

10. INTERPOL your ex. After you've lodged criminal charges against your ex-spouse, ask your police department to request help from INTERPOL by contacting the National Center. Ask the police to request liason services from the Technical Analyst. Ask the investigating officer to contact INTERPOL directly at INTERPOL, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, DC 20530, (202)272-8383.

11. Use the U.S. Customs Service's computer system. It's linked with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Wanted Persons File at Customs Service checkpoints at U.S. airports and borders.

Ask the customs official to run a "random sample" check on a few Americans returning from foreign travel. If you have a state or federal felony warrant that's in the NCIC Wanted Person File, the abductor has a chance of being arrested if he or she reaches U.S. customs at an airport or border.

12. Contact the Office of Citizens Consular Services, U.S. Department of State, Room 4817, Washington, D.C. 20520 or call (202) 647-3666. If you have an after-hours emergency, call them at (202) 647-5225. Have all paperwork in front of you regarding identification of the abductor and your children.

13. If your child's health or welfare is endangered in the foreign country, contact the International Social Services Organization, 20 W. 40th St., New York, NY 10018, (212) 398-9142.

14. Entry and residence records are always kept by foreign countries. If you're stranded looking for your children abroad, go to the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. They may be able to provide you with enough money to travel home or U.S. passports for your children, if your former partner has obtained foreign passports for them, but you now have legal custody in the U.S.

15. Trace your former partner's financial sources. Money must come from somewhere to support your children. Look into the proceeds of bank accounts, loans, credit cards, and the assets of the abductor's foreign family who may be supporting your children.

Contact the motor vehicle bureau in the U.S. and in the foreign country where your spouse may have family. How did your former spouse leave the U.S.?

Check the airlines, car rental firms, and other transportation sources. Talk to customs agents. Look at phone bills and mail covers. Where are the utility bills going? Which health department innoculated your children for foreign travel? What address was given on your children's vaccination records?

16. File a court action for your children's return. Find an attorney familiar with the Hague Convention. It's an international treaty that governs the return of internationally abducted children. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1988. Only Australia, Canada, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. participate in the Hague convention.

17. Call the Citizens Consular Services or the Center for Missing and Exploited Children for an update on which countries are now adhering to the treaty that honors U.S. court custody orders to return abducted children to the custodial parent.

18. Obtain a list of international attorneys specializing in international child abduction custody disputes from the Office of Citizens Consular Services, at the U.S. Department of State. These lawyers speak English.

Contact the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, U.S. Chapter, 727 Atlantic Ave., Boston, MA 02111-2891, (617) 542-3881. Ask for a lawyer referral list of specialists in international child custody and abduction cases.

Also write to the Family Law Division of the International Bar Association, c/o 6950 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22213, (703) 532-9300. Write to the Legal Defense Counsel, 111 15th St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, (215) 977-9982. Ask for guidelines and a list of referrals to foreign lawyers specializing in your needs that speak English and take American clients. If you travel to the foreign country where you believe your children are being held hostage by a non-custodial parent, visit the legal bar associations in that country.

19. You may have to sue your ex?spouse in a foreign court. To have your American custody order recognized in a foreign court, it helps to learn about comity. The word refers to a process in which the courts of different countries recognize one another's orders. Comity is voluntary and requires reciprocity.

Your attorney should be familiar with comity and check Article 23 of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. This act requires foreign custody orders to be honored by American courts.

Learn to make decisions under stress by focusing on your most important strategies. Make lists. Keep diaries. Plan schedules. Stay organized and decisive.

20. If you ex spouse has gone to a foreign court and obtained foreign court orders granting him or her sole custody in the foreign country, then the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act requires your ex spouse's foreign custody orders to be honored in an American court when your ex spouse returns to the U.S.

You can read summaries of numerous international custody cases by writing to the Office of Citizens Consular Services. A copy of Interstate Child Custody Disputes and Parental Kidnapping: Policy Practice and Law, is meant for lawyers, but it makes helpful reading for parents.

Call the Legal Department of the National Center for Missing and Exploited children at 1-800-843-5678.

21. Hire a hostage rescue service. For anywhere from $35,000 to $100,000 and up, you can hire former U.S. Delta Force commandos who are experts in training hostage rescue personnel.

They will travel with you to the foreign country to take your child back. The commando team makes a point of showing foreign nationals they are unarmed when they return a child to the parent with custody orders from a U.S. court. To receive a brochure on this type of service, write to Don Feeney, Corporate Training Unlimited (CTU), 6527 Raeford, Fayetteville, North Carolina.

If your children are already overseas, methods for working with foreign courts are outlined. It's far easier to legally prevent your ex spouse from taking the children out of the country than to try and win a court battle in a country that awards children to only male relatives. Before you choose an attorney, make sure the individual is aware of all the ways children may be prevented from being flown out of your life for decades.

It's easier to prevent your child from being taken out of the country than to hire a commando team to rescue your child from a foreign land. For what looks like rescue of an American-born child to you is seen as kidnapping of children from countries that recognize these American-born children as citizens of the father's country or his male relatives. So what can you do before or after?

Maybe you married a person from another country because you wanted to marry someone of the same ancestry as yourself and raise children in your culture. Or you wanted someone who was different. Foreign talent has been compared to homegrown varieties for eons.

Now you're divorcing, separating, or only traveling abroad to visit your mate's family. You've received sole custody orders from a U.S. court, and you think your divorce heartache is over. One day during a visitation your estranged partner snatches your child.

The next thing you know is your child is missing overseas and isn't coming back. The foreign court doesn't obey U.S. custody court orders. In your former partner's country, your estranged spouse with children are considered foreign nationals, even though your children were born in the U.S.

The other nation's court and legal system may have laws that award a child in a divorce case to the father or his male relatives, regardless of the citizenship of the children or custodial parent. It may not matter whether your ex partner was naturalized as a US or other citizen or whether your ex partner was born in the United States or any other country if ancestry and parents can be traced to the foreign country. Each country has its own rules on who is of that country's ancestry.

Over 300,000 children have been abducted since the sixties by a parent, and more than 6,000 have disappeared in foreign countries, some for more than 20 years without correspondence with the American parent. What strategies can you take to prevent your former spouse or partner from taking your child overseas permanently?