MK Family Law

On August 26, 2020, in the case of Zaoral v. Meza , the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ordered the return of a 15-year-old child to Venezuela. The parties' youngest child, age 15 at the time of the trial, was the subject of a Venezuelan custody order that gave both parents joint parental responsibility, and ordered that the Mother, who was the primary residential custodian, could not change the child's residence without notifying the Father so he could exercise his rights and duties.   The Mother sought court permission to take the daughter on a several-week trip to visit family in Houston from July 6, 2018 through August 14, 2018.  The court permitted the trip and required the Mother to appear in court the week after her scheduled return.  The travel authorization from the court also included specific language that informed the Mother that her failure to return the child would be a criminal offense.  Nonetheless, the Mother failed to ret...

The case of LO v. NO, No. CAAP-19-0000762 , gives me the opportunity to provide some reminders to everyone about child abduction prevention.   The actual underlying issue in this case was the Father’s appeal of the trial court’s post-decree order granting the Mother’s request for a U.S. passport for the parties’ minor child.  The appellate court ultimately affirmed the trial court’s order because the Father’s brief did not quote any of the family court’s findings of fact, nor did the Father append any findings of fact to the brief, which is required by the Hawai’i Rules of Appellate Procedure.  Because of this, the Father was bound by the findings of fact made by the trial court, and the family court did not abuse its discretion in ordering the Father to cooperate in securing a passport for the minor child, something he argued he did not want to do out of concern the Mother would take the child to Vietnam. Here are some useful points to remember, spurred by the opinion:...

On July 24, 2020, the U.S. District for the District of Columbia addressed an interesting request under the Hague Abduction Convention.  In the case of  Stone v. U.S. Embassy Tokyo, et. al. , Mr. Jack Stone sued the U.S. government to issue a passport for his first-born child.  Subsequently, he amended his filing.  In his Second Amended Complaint,  he argued that his wife left the United States for Japan on November 11, 2018, with his child and without his consent, out of fear that she would be deported because the U.S. government had not issued her a visa, despite the Plaintiff submitting a Petition for Alien Relative (Form I-130) over a year prior.  Mr. Stone then filed additional pleadings, which the court construed as a motion for leave to amend his Second Amended Complaint. In the Third Amended Complaint, Mr. Stone requested his child’s return under the Hague Abduction Convention, an order compelling U.S. citizenship for his second-born child, a visa f...

When parents share joint legal custody of their child, both parents must sign the minor child’s U.S. passport application.  In the case of Clarke v. Lopez , the minor child’s father, Mr. Lopez, signed the child’s passport application but did it without the proper notarial stamp.  When asked by the child’s mother, Ms. Clarke, to rectify this error, he refused.  The U.S. Passport Office told Ms. Clarke that she should request an order from the appropriate court that gives her the sole authority to apply for the minor child’s passport, so Ms. Clarke filed a request for this relief in the Superior Court in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  She did not, however, request any change in legal or physical custody.   The court dismissed her request, without a hearing.   Ms. Clarke appealed, and, on June 17, 2020, the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands, reversed and remanded.  Not only did the court clarify that it should not have summarily dismissed Ms. Clarke’s reques...

Roee Kiviti and Adiel Kiviti are married fathers to two children born through surrogates in Canada.  Their first child, LRK, born in 2016, used Roee’s sperm and has a biological relationship with Roee.  KRK, their second child, born in 2019, used Adiel’s sperm and has a biological relationship with Adiel.  The Canadian courts issued orders establishing that Roee and Adiel were the legal parents of both children and not the surrogates. Shortly after LRK’s birth, upon re-entering the United States, the couple applied for and obtained a U.S. passport for their son.  Shortly after KRK’s birth, when taking the same steps, the U.S. Department of State concluded KRK was not a U.S. citizen under the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA).  The DOS denied KRK a passport. Roee and Adiel sued the U.S. Department of State arguing, among other things, that the government’s denial of a child, born in wedlock to two U.S. naturalized citizen parents, was contrary to the INA. ...

The U.S. Department of State issues a yearly "compliance" report, as mandated by Congress , that visits outstanding child abduction cases from the United States to other countries and explores some of the underlying reasons behind why certain cases remain unresolved.  The report includes both countries where there is a treaty relationship with the United States under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention and countries where there is no treaty relationship (and, perhaps, no laws in place to facilitate the return of a child to the US). For the 2020 report (looking at cases from 2019), the below countries were designated as "non-compliant" by the United States.  Non-compliance relates to a country's "persistent failure" to abide by legal obligations to return children or work with the U.S. government to resolve cases.  Under ICAPRA , a "persistent failure" is where 30% or more of all abduction cases remain unresolved; the foreign country...

Mr. Joseph Raia sued the U.S. Secretary of State and the U.S. Department of State requesting an immediate issuance of a new passport for his 10 year old son who is presently located in Italy and is the subject of a Hague Abduction return proceeding in that country.  The minor child’s passport, which was used by the child’s mother to remove the child from the United States and take the child to Italy, was cancelled after the petitioner father submitted a passport application and marked the passport as “lost.”  ( Raia v. Pompeo and U.S. Department of State , 20-cv-1083 (JMA) (AYS) US District Court EDNY) The father argued that the minor child is in need of an immediate passport, so that “when” the Italian courts order the child returned under the Hague Abduction Convention, the father can promptly return the child to the United States.  The father expressed a sincere concern over his child’s immediate safety, with the child having a serious heart condition that could...