Childrens Issues Management Conference Call

[dmdaven2]

Daisy from the US Dept State sent this

"I was informed by your congressional representative’s office that you would like to speak to CI management, is this correct?  If so, I propose the following, I can facilitate a conference call with CI western hemisphere management, the BCA, and your congressional and senate representatives.  Will this be something you would be interested in?  If so, what day and time works for you?  I will contact the BCA to make sure they are available for a conference call and set it up immediately."

So I'm wondering if any LBP or any other supporters have any issues they'd like me to raise with Childrens Issues

Let me know

[Nicole's Dad]

Devon,

I have had several conference calls with these same exact people you will be talking too. Keep a cool head if you are looking for help from them. Call them out with facts and stick to the facts. Do your best to not get emotional with them.

I have come to the conclusion that these people don't give a crap about you, your ex or your child. It is just a job to them and that is all. Keep that in mind when you are talking to them.

FYI. My whole visitation deal is signed, sealed and approved by the feds in Brazil and I am going to court next week to file the mirror orders here in Texas. Nicole is scheduled ot be here the week of November 28th.

I would be very surprised even with all the proof, which we both have a lot, if Brazil returns Nadia. You can keep after it but just remember what you are up against. There is a solution to everything. Concessions will have to be made on both sides. You would not be giving up. Make it all about Nadia. You are a very lucky Father. She is beautiful. Trust me. They do not care. Compromise is the only way for Nadia and you will NOT get help from the US Government.

I just don't want to see anymore parents go through what I did for 5 long years before realizing what I could have done a long time ago if I would have just lost the anger and hurt.

[SageDad]

I don't think anyone here can tell you about issues with OCI that you don't already know all about.

As far as concessions and visitations go I am a long way from believing that mediated agreements for visitation of children in Brazil are readily enforceable by the American parent against the ill-will of the abducting parent to obstruct them. 

What does Devon do after he spends $2000 to fly to Brazil only to find that Nadia and her mother are not home or have moved to a different address?  Will the AGU step back in to assist in enforcing any such mediated agreement after they have washed their hands of the case and marked it as " resolved?" Or will he have to lose the money spent on travel and initiate a whole new series of legal trials from his home in the US, at personal expense, to get the mediated agreement enforced?

In short, if the Brazilian legal system is so ineffective at returning children, a one time deal where they only need to enforce a single event, what guarantees does he have that they will consistently enforce his "visitation rights" month after month for years in Brazil, or pursue criminal charges of parental alienation against the abductor when she completely ignores the mediated agreement that effectively closed the Hague case?  I've seen some "mission accomplished" style banners about parents being "reunited" or getting visitation orders in Brazil, but I've yet to see anything that assures me such agreements are anywhere near being as agressively enforced as they need to be in order for them to be an attractive alternative to pursuing a return.

I have a court ordered agreement to see my son in Mexico four days a week, but I haven't seen him in months and, despite having an excellent law firm filing a tsunami of legal complaints, new evidence and requesting police enforcement, fines, criminal charges or a change in provisional custody in Mexico, I haven't seen any movement towards enforcement or accountability for my wife's flagrant and unrepentant noncompliance with the interim court agreement she signed.

[dmdaven2]

Yea...I agree with Carlos...visitation doesn't trump the Hague in my opinion...visitation is a loss that a LBP takes as an option since it's the only way they'll see their children (which seems to be your case)...but if you haven't lost the Hague yet...there's no reason to quit the fight because visitation as Carlos pointed out...isn't the ideal, nor the guaranteed.

[tweinstein]

Although Michael only got visitation in Brazil until his daughter is much older, I think that Marty is referring to his negotiated visitation in the United States. If Brazil won't send our children back, we need to wait for them to choose to return when they are older. The only way they may make that choice is if they are regularly exposed to life in the United States.

As a side note that is unrelated to this, can people believe that the postal system in Brazil (at least where my children are) has been on strike for nearly one month now? I don't care how much economic progress Brazil has made recently, something like this can only happen in a country that is STILL THIRD-WORLD.

[SageDad]

Although Michael only got visitation in Brazil until his daughter is much older, I think that Marty is referring to his negotiated visitation in the United States. If Brazil won't send our children back, we need to wait for them to choose to return when they are older. The only way they may make that choice is if they are regularly exposed to life in the United States.

As a side note that is unrelated to this, can people believe that the postal system in Brazil (at least where my children are) has been on strike for nearly one month now? I don't care how much economic progress Brazil has made recently, something like this can only happen in a country that is STILL THIRD-WORLD.

The issue remains the same.  What happens when the Hague case is closed and all that is left is an unenforceable order allowing visitations in the US?

[tweinstein]

The issue remains the same.  What happens when the Hague case is closed and all that is left is an unenforceable order allowing visitations in the US?

I don't know how it will work in Marty's case as his agreement does not include any provision for child support payments (or Michael's where the child support is nominal), but I imagine that in others, where the child support payments are much higher, the flow of money from the LBP may be enough to keep the abducting parent compliant.

[SageDad]

The issue remains the same.  What happens when the Hague case is closed and all that is left is an unenforceable order allowing visitations in the US?

I don't know how it will work in Marty's case as his agreement does not include any provision for child support payments (or Michael's where the child support is nominal), but I imagine that in others, where the child support payments are much higher, the flow of money from the LBP may be enough to keep the abducting parent compliant.

Child support is generally not tied to visitation and is enforced separately, independently and much more seriously than visitation.  Not paying child support, whether you actually have the means to pay or not, is often enough to have you thrown in jail without a trial, have professional licenses and property seized as well as bank accounts frozen.  Child support is often also enforced automatically and for free if the paying parent doesn't pay.

None of that is true for visitation.  Denied visitation has no gigantic and well-funded enforcement agency behind it, nor does it have a series of international treaties on it (just Article 20 of the HAC and some guiding principles in the UNCRC.)  When visits are denied the LBP will probably need to go out and hire a lawyer, file a new Hague petition and wait/spend who knows how long or how much. 

It sounds easy enough to just stop trying to have a child returned from the country they were abducted to and be able to see them in that country or visit the US, but enforcing access/visits can be a nightmare even when both parents live in the same city.

A large percentage of the parents in jail in the US for non-payment of child-support claim that they do not pay to protest their spouse interfering with visitation (ie the two obligations are independent.)

[Nicole's Dad]

Gentlemen,

You may be right with regards to enforcement. But I will say this. It all depends on the taking parent. My daughter's mother will by no means take my child and run off and cause me to have to use the "search and seizure" clause in federal court ruling in Brazil.

Unfortunately, your cases have all gone the way they have gone because of the narcissistic ways of the opposing party and your own interest in seeing your child returned outright and not understanding that regardless of how we, as adults are acting, the child still loves both parents regardless. There are some instances where actually being nice and cordial works. Putting the child first instead of your own self interests and your own self desires to see one or the other parent suffer when in reality, the only one that is suffering is the child. My child has lost 5 years with her American family that will never be given back to her. We all think that fighting this neverending battle that we will prevail and that the child will be "okay". Finding a happy medium has worked for me in my case and just maybe if you tried it with your ex, might work for you as well. Guess who wins? THE CHILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over-analyzing things with statistics, spending unsurmountable amounts of money and tsunamis of paperwork still has not yielded returns of your children. Just like this guy that was trying to get his kid back from Colombia. He came back from his trailblazing walk in Colombia only to be on the streets because he lost everything including his job but is still blaming the government for not helping him. Leaves me with one question. Why would the government want to bring this child back here to the US for him to live on the streets? My point is to stop the spending. Stop the fruitless efforts of trying to convince an opposing government to return your child. It will never work. The only reason it worked with Sean is because his mother was dead.

All situations are different but with mine, I chose to do this for my child's benefit. Not my own self interest. I put self first before and it got me nowhere. Now I put my child first and now she will be here on US soil November 30th until February 1st. I'm only trying to reach out to Devon with an alternative just as I did with Weinstein. It worked for me so who's to say it won't work for them if you can get the right amount of traction.  

[dmdaven2]

Unfortunately the opposing party in my case is trying to erase me out of my daughters life completely and THE ONLY WAY i'll EVER see Nadia is if I win her back via the Hague...I'm dealing with the most immature taking parent ever, who only thinks of herself...and so a negotiation would never occur in which I'd even be able to work out any sort of "visitation". And even if it DID happen, she'd neglect to show up, like Carlos' situation.

For me there is no other option...to add to that, my daughter is only 3...so we have time...I've already won the first instance...now waiting on the ruling from the second...

[SageDad]

Unfortunately the opposing party in my case is trying to erase me out of my daughters life completely and THE ONLY WAY i'll EVER see Nadia is if I win her back via the Hague...I'm dealing with the most immature taking parent ever, who only thinks of herself...and so a negotiation would never occur in which I'd even be able to work out any sort of "visitation". And even if it DID happen, she'd neglect to show up, like Carlos' situation.

For me there is no other option...to add to that, my daughter is only 3...so we have time...I've already won the first instance...now waiting on the ruling from the second...

 :yeahthat

My son's mother changed his name, taught him diverse men were his father and are teaching him to be ashamed of being an American.  They tease him that he cannot celebrate Mexico's independence day because "he's an Gringo."   They even admitted as much to me as a way of trying to tell me they don't hide his American heritage from him... No, of course not, they just teach him to be shameful of it.  When I paid for him to attend the best school in his city, only blocks from where he lived, his mother claimed she would send him (hard to get a judge to agree with not sending a child to the best possible school where the tuition is already paid) but has yet to ever bring him there because she doesn't want him to learn English.

I tried being nice and cordial.  I tried all sorts of concessions short of signing away custody of my son or agreeing for him to live in Mexico.  I know once I do either of those things I will be essentially agreeing to trust the unfaithful wife who abducted our son and set out to justify it with any and every lie she could think of to keep her side of the agreement.  Unfortunately, trusting such a person is not an option.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice,  shame on me.

I want my son to have both parents, but I know that the only way that will happen is if I am the one making the decisions about when my son sees his mother.  If she is allowed to decide when I see my son it will be sometime around when hell freezes over.

Pursuing access and visitation is great.  I have been doing exactly that for some time now, but I won't write off the case for my son's return.  It may even be the case that they take so long to return my son that the day he arrives in the US I will take him back to Mexico, but with a US court order that is properly mirrored, registered and enforceable in Mexico and leaves custody with me and jurisdiction with US courts.

If only it were so simple that I could stop putting my needs first and just think of the child -- except that's what I've been doing.  I don't care to see my son's mother suffer, I don't care to see her period.  This isn't about me or her.

Mediated agreements and visitation orders will never play a significant role in these cases until there is a workable return mechanism that will encourage abductors to engage in meditation and comply with agreements in good faith.  Short of that they are just another one of the 100's of tactics to waste the time and money of LBP's.

I think Tim's visitation will work, but he's lucky in that respect.  The typical child abductors mentality is egotistical, selfish and spiteful.  I hope the visitation you and Michael have arranged works out.  Though I cannot, in good conscience, recommend other parents wholly abandon efforts for return in favor of access unless having some limited access is really all they want to begin with and they wouldn't want the child returned in the, admittedly unlikely, event that they actually win.

[tweinstein]

I was only willing to pursue visitation when I ran out of legal options for a return. I am far from reaching a successful agreement, though am actively trying to negotiate and am hopeful that my children will see US soil before they turn 18. You guys are correct when you say I am "lucky" that my children's mother never tried to completely eliminate me from our children's lives.

[SageDad]

I was only willing to pursue visitation when I ran out of legal options for a return. I am far from reaching a successful agreement, though am actively trying to negotiate and am hopeful that my children will see US soil before they turn 18. You guys are correct when you say I am "lucky" that my children's mother never tried to completely eliminate me from our children's lives.

heh.. yeah.  "lucky" is a very relative term.