Do you or your children’s co-parent have any plans to travel internationally with your children? If so, you should start laying the groundwork for that travel now. While most child custody cases won’t involve any international intrigue, it’s a possibility that you should give at least some thought to, particularly if either parent is a foreign national or has family in or other strong ties to another country.
In this chapter, we’ll be looking at:
- what rules you should set regarding travel after a child custody determination,
- what the Hague Abduction Convention is and how it works,
- how to obtain passports for your children and the importance of custody orders when obtaining children’s passports, and
- safety measures you can take to protect your children and their passports.
Let’s start by considering any travel you may want to do—or that your co-parent may want to do—after your separation and custody determination.
Travel Restrictions After Separation
How should you approach travel plans or travel restrictions with regard to your child’s custody? You may not think, at first, that international travel is important in your case. Maybe neither parent really travels much outside of the U.S., or maybe neither of you plans to take the children anywhere while they’re still minors. Still, to avoid problems down the road, it probably makes sense to address travel in your custody agreement or court order. This is all the more important if one parent has family in, or strong connections to, another country.
One of the first questions with regard to travel restrictions is simply “Where can the child go?” If the other parent has family or friends in another country, are you okay with that parent taking the child to that country? Does it depend on what other country they want to visit? You want to address those possibilities in your agreement.
Next, give some thought to when this travel can take place. What if the other parent wants to take the child on a trip during the school year, which will cause the child to miss a significant amount of time from school?
Who can the child travel with? Can the child travel with the other parent and that parent’s mother? What about the other parent and his or her new girlfriend or boyfriend? Consider whether you want to place some restrictions on who can go on these trips.
While you’re thinking about who’s with your child, you might also want to set specific rules about housing and sleeping arrangements. Who can your child share a room or a bed with while traveling? You can use a custody agreement or order to set a lot of ground rules that may be helpful later, from who’s going to provide the necessities for travel—everything from prescription medication to an iPad for a long flight—to how often the other parent will hear from the child during travel.
However detailed you choose to get, you probably want to spend at least some time thinking about how you should approach international travel in your custody situation. The last thing you want is to learn after the fact that your co-parent has taken your child somewhere outside of the country without your knowledge or consent.
On that note, let’s take a moment to consider the possibility of international abduction.
What is the Hague Abduction Convention?
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction—commonly called just the Hague Abduction Convention or the Hague Convention—is an international treaty that has been in effect since 1983. It was created to address the problem of children being abducted to another country by a parent and provides for their quick return to the children’s home country, which is known as their “habitual residence.”
The Hague Convention seeks only to maintain the status quo: whatever child custody arrangement existed before a parent wrongfully removed a child to another country or wrongfully retained the child there. This prevents parents from undercutting their U.S. custody agreement by going to another country where the child custody laws are substantially different and re-litigating their custody there. Hearings under the Hague Convention do not decide how the child’s custody should be resolved. They are concerned only with which country should make that determination.
While the Hague Convention is meant to ensure a child’s “expeditious” return to the home country, what that actually means is less expeditious than most parents would prefer. Under the Hague Convention, a final decision should be reached within six weeks of an action’s initiation.
The Hague Convention applies only if a child was originally a “habitual resident” of a participating country. If you’re reading this book, we’re going to assume that your child’s custody dispute was initiated in the U.S., which means your child is subject to the Hague Convention. However, the Hague Convention only protects your child if the other parent takes him or her to another participating country. As of early 2019, 100 countries have agreed to the convention—which clearly leaves a great number of countries that have not. Many middle eastern countries, such as Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, do not participate in the Hague Convention. If your child ends up in one of those non-member countries, the Hague Convention will not help you.
The Hague Convention doesn’t apply at all once a child turns 16 years old. It also provides an exception for when a “child is old enough and has a sufficient degree of maturity to knowingly object to being returned” to the home country.
Even though the Hague Convention concerns child abduction, which may seem like a dramatic and unlikely outcome in your case, it also establishes the framework that member countries—including the U.S.—use to form their laws and regulations regarding children’s travel. (For example, the age limit of the Hague Convention is why strict passport regulations in the U.S. only apply to children under the age of 16.)
Let’s turn now to those more common situations involving children’s travel.
Children’s Passports and the Importance of Custody Orders
Because international child abduction is such a terrifying prospect, children’s passports are notoriously difficult to obtain.
Every child who seeks to travel outside of the United States—even a newborn—must have his or her own passport. Children under the age of 16 must apply in person, with both parents or at least the consent of both parents. The parents must present their own identifications as well as proof of their relationship to the child. These rules apply not only to the issuance of an initial passport but also to passport renewal.
But there’s an exception here that illustrates the power of court orders. If one parent has a court order granting him or her sole legal custody, or a court order that specifically allows that parent to unilaterally obtain a passport for the child, then that parent will be allowed to obtain the child’s passport without the consent of the other parent.
What else do you need to obtain a child’s passport? You should be prepared with:
- evidence of the child’s U.S. citizenship, such as a certified long-form birth certificate or a certificate of citizenship;
- the parents’ photo identifications;
- proof of the parents’ relationship to the child, such as a birth certificate, adoption decree, or custody order; and
- a 2” by 2” passport photo of the child, taken within the last six months.
Don’t forget to stock up on patience; getting or renewing a passport for your child can be an arduous process.
Safety Measures for Children’s Passports
If your children have passports—or if they might get them while they’re still minors—it pays to take extra precautions with them. Consider adopting the following measures.
If your child doesn’t yet have a passport, register him or her with the U.S. Department of State. A passport, once issued, can’t be suspended, so it’s wise not to let your child get a passport “just in case.” To ensure that the other parent doesn’t try to obtain a passport on the sly, you can register for the Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program (CPIAP) through the Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues. When you register your child under CPIAP, you will be notified if a passport application is submitted for your child. You will also be contacted to verify that you have provided any required parental consent for your child’s passport issuance.
Safeguard your children’s passports. Children’s passports are particularly difficult to obtain, so don’t treat them casually. Keep them safe and secure, and be sure you always know where they are, both at home and especially when traveling. In countries where thefts or pickpocketing are common, consider keeping your child’s passport in a hotel safe or in a secure travel wallet or money belt worn under your clothing.
Require that traveling parent provide an itinerary and contact info before releasing the passport. If your child’s other parent has strong ties to another country and you have any reason to suspect that international abduction is a possibility, take proactive steps to protect your child. This could include keeping the child’s passport in a third party’s custody and only allowing it to be released when the traveling party provides an agreed itinerary with current contact information. You may want to test and confirm the contact information before releasing the child’s passport.
As you can see, effective and cooperative co-parenting can make everything easier, from daily schedules to once-in-a-lifetime overseas excursions. With that in mind, let’s turn to our next—and final—chapter, where we’ll provide some tips on joint parenting.
