Texas

[DazedCloud]

I am a US citizen and my wife is a UK citizen who holds a resident card. We had a disagreement November 30. She called the cops I went to jail and she cleared our house. We have two children 10 year old daughter and 7 year old son. Well I just found out she’s taken them the UK. Every embassy is useless “visit our website” I haven’t seen or talked to my children in four months. The cops came to the house because I was crying begging her not to take our kids and she ran the car door down my leg so I slapped her thigh once. So I’m stuck in a “criminal case” Police report even says slap. Over the years she’s abused me cracked a molar and thrown me to the floor multiple times. Was it legal for her to just take the kids from the only home they’ve known she’s just a resident and they’re citizens. What if anything can I do about this? Never had any criminal issues before I’m a good dad. Not perfect but who is? I need some help so if anyone knows that would be great. I’m in Texas btw. She never filed for divorce just found out she was in England 3 days ago.

 

[Taxing Matters]

You have two problems that I see that makes achieving what you want more difficult. The first is that unless there was a court order requiring the kids stay your county or state then either parent has the right to take their children where they like, as long as it doesn't put the kids in any kind of danger, of course. As she's already left the country and presumably won't return (which may affect her ability to go for U.S. citizenship, should she want to do that) it's obviously too late to stop her from taking the kids to the UK now. You may file in Texas for divorce as you are a resident of that state. And you likely don't need to get her to appear in the court to achieve that. But the divorce itself just severs the marriage.

Taking care of custody/visitation and division of issues is another matter. You'd need to find out if Texas courts would have personal jurisdiction over your wife. If they, then you could file the action in Texas courts but you still have the challenge of serving her in England, and that's not particularly easy since U.S. court orders don't apply outside the U.S. There is a process set up by treaty to handle this kind of thing. I've never done it so I don't know the details of exactly what you'd need to do. If the Texas court lacks personal jurisdiction with regard to your wife then you's have to bring any action to deal with this in the UK courts and the UK courts are almost certainly going to apply UK law, not U.S. law, in deciding the outcome. Though again, I've never tried a case of any kind in the UK, let alone a custody and visitation dispute and I don't know UK law.

I strongly recommend you at least consult with a Texas family law attorney who can review all the facts and tell you what the options are. I suggest you start out looking for one that has some experience in cross border custody/visitation matters. The fee you pay for that advice will be well worth it. You don't want to spend money and time pursuing a particular path to solving this and then find out later that the path you chose isn't the right one.

 

[kaitan692]

I strongly recommend you at least consult with a Texas family law attorney who can review all the facts and tell you what the options are. I suggest you start out looking for one that has some experience in cross border custody/visitation matters. The fee you pay for that advice will be well worth it. You don't want to spend money and time pursuing a particular path to solving this and then find out later that the path you chose isn't the right one.

Yep, I agree with Tax Matters. seeking legal advice to explore options, such as contacting relevant authorities, filing for custody