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Divorce can be a gut-wrenching experience. Aside from the emotional pain you are going through, you must also deal with the complexities and complications that come with the legalities of divorce. Issues such as child support, child custody, alimony, equitable distribution, and even legal fees can make a divorce more complex and painful than it needs to be. When divorcing a woman you have married from a foreign country, the complications are quite often more numerous; the lucky thing for you is that the complications most often fall in the lap of the immigrant. On top of the issues mentioned above, divorce with an immigrant will often involve in-depth immigration and financial issues as well. Many of the specifics will depend on your own unique situation.
While the divorce process will be conducted according to the laws of the state in which you apply for the divorce, the actual immigration process will be handled by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Office. When dealing with this situation, you should consult both a divorce attorney and an immigration attorney. This will give you the clearest approach to the situation, with perspectives and opinions from all sides.
Many major differences with immigrant divorce arise when the U.S. spouse has decided to sponsor the foreign spouse's immigration application. This is quite common, obviously, since the U.S. spouse wants their foreign partner to officially and legally reside with them in the United States. However, the sponsorship of their immigration application can become a complicated area during a divorce process.
International Child Custody Issues
With an international divorce, further complications arise when there are children involved. While some international marriages end with a pleasant parting of the spouses and a legitimate, fair custody situation established, many of them do not. On the contrary, these other instances can become destructive, life-changing events.
Unfortunately, international child abduction cases have become quite common. When the marriage between a U.S. citizen and an immigrant comes to an end, the divorce will be more complicated when children are added to the equation. Because many foreign spouses do not want to risk losing their child/children, they will simply flee the country. Without strict exit controls in the United States, anyone with a passport can leave the country. Therefore, it is shockingly simple for an angry spouse to abduct a child and run away.
Too often, the fleeing spouse is successful. Once hidden away in their destination country, they can acquire custody of the child/children and leave the "left-behind parent" alone and unaware of the situation. Not only does this horrible occurrence involve complex law and regulation, but the emotional pain and repercussions can be severe for both the child/children and the left-behind parent.
The children's lives will be disrupted in many ways. They will be taken quickly from their schools, their homes, and their friends. Suddenly, a parent who has been around every day to provide love and support has disappeared completely. The children may feel a sense of responsibility for what has happened to them, attempting to place blame on themselves because nothing else makes sense. The left-behind parent will feel many coinciding emotions, also feeling ripped away from someone who had been around each and every day. Maybe most importantly, both the children and the left-behind parent will feel a strong sense of abandonment and rejection that may never go away.
Preventative steps can be taken to avoid this sort of disaster. Although each U.S. state has its own laws and regulations regarding divorce, there are also nationally recognized laws about this subject that states have endorsed over time.
Similar to a run-of-the-mill domestic divorce, the custody of the children in an international divorce case will be decided once the specific situation has been analyzed. In the past, it was heavily debated whether or not relocating children would cause more harm than good. Eventually, it was concluded that each case is unique and should be analyzed accordingly to decide whether relocation would be advantageous. While this judgment process is going on, be conscious of a possible child abduction. If your children have been assigned passports, you should take cautionary action to secure their safety.
Your custody decree can be a very important part of keeping your children safe from abduction. Somewhere within the decree, be sure to include that the children need your permission, or the court's permission, to leave the country for any reason. Next, contact the Child Passport Issuance Alert Program and add your children's names to the Passport Lookout System. This way, you will be quickly notified if passports have been issued to your children. However, this does not guarantee your ability to revoke a passport that has already been issued. Your child's information will be sent to all U.S. passport agencies and also to any U.S. embassies.
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