DavidLemon

People post questions on the forum in the hope that they can obtain answers to help them. Yours was not helpful, and could potentially have created a very serious and horrible situation for the OP.

By all means share your experience, but you must make it clear that this is the intent of the post from the beginning. You im afraid did not. You made a false declaration hence lansbury jumping in and setting the record straight. The fact that you then decided to argue with the subject matter authority well that just made me smile.

muddy mudguard

Glad I can amuse!

muddy mudguard

So, FYI, and again - perhaps I'm wrong - happy to be wrong.

BUT, I just spoke to the United States Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs - Office of Children’s Issues.

I had the following confirmed to me:

There are no exit requirements for US Citizens to depart the US. I.E. there does not have to be paternal/maternal consent. IF however a Custody Order is in place, then yes, consent needs to be given. Without any order in place, the mother is free to take the child out of the country.

Again, I'm happy to be wrong on this, but this is exactly what I was told by my attorney in 2010 and I've just now had it confirmed by United States Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs - Office of Children’s Issues.

Toll Free Phone from the U.S./Canada: 1-888-407-4747
Outside the U.S/Canada: 1-202-501-4444
Fax 202-736-9132

lansbury

I am very calm I can assure you. I posted in the tone I did because this is a very serious matter, which can have devastating consequences. Most lawyers, in private practice, in both the UK and US lack even the basic knowledge of the criminal side of child abduction, and concentrate on the civil side. The civil side doesn't not interest, and has no impact on the actions, of law enforcement officers.

I have seen children removed from the UK because the lawyer advised a Section 8 Order was sufficient. It has no powers for police to act upon it, it is only a civil court order, with no legal power of arrest. I say legal power because I've seen county courts put a power on them when they had no authority to do so. I have seen people attempt to leave the UK and when asked say the children and I are going on holiday for two weeks, my solicitors says the Child Abduction Act allows that. Er no, it gives a statutory defense if that was the case, which you have to prove to be so if you get arrested for child abduction. Followed by you are being arrested for child abduction etc.

So if I post the way I do when I see bad advise being given on removing children from one country to another, I make no apology. I don't care if you see the error of your posts or not, but I am concerned others reading this thread now, or finding it doing a Google search later, do. As you say it is a forum all are free to post, and all should correct and try to stop information being disseminated when they know is it so dangerously wrong as related to the topic being discussed, and to make sure people know why they consider it to be wrong.

muddy mudguard

I appreciate you response, I really do as it is a matter that has effected me personally - albeit 2yrs ago now.

In addition, and I'm genuinely interested in your opinions on the post I made above - could you take the time to respond to that with your thoughts?

Thanks

lansbury

Correct there is no requirement when leaving the US to show that you have the permission of all the persons with legal responsibility of the child to do so. In fact you only need to show the airline a passport, there are no exit controls at US ports.

It is an offense of Parental Kidnapping in the US to take a child from US without the consent of all persons and parties who have a legal responsibility for the child. I.E. there has to be the consent of all persons and parties with legal parental responsibilities. The onus is on the person taking the child to obtain the required consents. There are two affirmative defenses in the US. 1) the person believed they had such consent, and 2) it was done to project the child from harm and abuse.

This is what the DoS web site says:- http://travel.state.gov/abduction/pr...ntion_560.html

International Parental Child Abduction Is Illegal
Under the laws of the United States and many foreign countries, international parental child abduction is crime. Removing a child from the United States against another parent's wishes can be considered a crime in every U.S. state. In some cases an abducting parent may be charged with a Federal crime under the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act (IPKCA). This can be the case even when neither parent holds a custody decree prior to the abduction. Nevertheless, a custody decree can be helpful to prevent an international parental child abduction, or to recover your child if he/she is abducted.