Call Us Now
Email Us Now
Generally, when a child goes to another state to visit the noncustodial parent for a scheduled visitation the child must return to the home state when the visitation ends. The same rule applies internationally: if the child travels from one country to another for a visitation, the child must return to the home country when the visit is scheduled to end. The present case is an international child custody dispute in which the mother took her three-year-old daughter to the United States to visit her mother (the child’s grandmother) for a designated 90 days. The case was not filed in Michigan but the decision of the federal court would likely apply here as well.
At the end of the 90 days, she remained and would not return the child to Sweden. The father had joint custody in Sweden and sued for her return. The federal judge ruled recently for the second time that the child must be returned to Sweden, which has been her legal residence since birth. He had originally issued the same order in May 2013.
The case is in a U.S. District Court in Iowa. The judge stayed his first order so the mother could appeal. The recent child custody order was the decision on the appeal. At the appeal, the mother presented what she said was new evidence, but it did not convince the court.
The father had claimed that the mother’s actions violated a treaty between the United States and Sweden regarding child custody rules. The father has been staying in Iowa while fighting to have his daughter returned. The court added that the mother had to pay the return trip expenses and was of course welcome to return to Sweden if she so chooses.
In Michigan or anywhere else, a child custody case with these facts should see the same outcome. The general rule is that you can’t take the law into your own hands and modify an existing child custody and visitation order on your own. The proper procedure would be to go first into the court in Sweden and ask for modification of the joint custody order, along with permission to move with the child to the United States.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, “US judge orders girl returned to father in Sweden,” David Pitt, July 3, 2013