Jose Luis Rivera Castillo loves his six-year-old daughter dearly, which is why it was so painful when a judge ordered that the little girl be sent back to Mexico in a US court. Castillo fathered six-year-old Elena with a past girlfriend, but the child’s mother was deported when it was discovered that she was an illegal immigrant. Now, Angelica Mota lives in Mexico and has been working hard to gain custody of her daughter. Elena was illegally smuggled into the United States when she was four. When her father and mother split, she remained with her dad. Yet as the child custody proceeded, the court eventually declared that Elena should be sent back to her country of origin to be with her mother. Elena said goodbye to her father last month when she was placed on a plane to fly from New York City back to Mexico.
Immigration and child custody disputes can become messy. If one parent was deported while the other remains in the US, it normally means that one parent will obtain full custody and the other parent will not be allowed any shared time. For some parents, relinquishing their child can be like watching that child die, because they know there’s a possibility that they will never see that loved one again. If you are dealing with a child custody issue in the midst of an immigration prosecution, then you will want an immigration attorney on your side. You are no longer only battling the government in hopes of remaining in the United States. You are now battling your ex-partner in hopes of keeping the child that you love.
If your child was born in Mexico or another foreign country, then he or she is not a naturalized citizen. This means that your child is technically an illegal immigrant, and chances are that the court will send the child back to its country of origin with an illegal immigrant spouse. If the child was born in the United States, he or she is a naturalized citizen and may be told to remain in America. Whenever the court intervenes in a custody agreement, they will want to carefully consider the dispositions of both parents.
For example, if a child’s mother is an illegal immigrant and a drug addict, then chances are that the court will award custody to the father. The courts can choose joint custody, sole physical custody, joint physical custody, sole legal custody, or joint legal custody when they are determining who will care for the children. If the parents are in separate countries, then most joint custody options are out of the question.
If you are a non-citizen and are granted sole physical custody of your child, then you will have the right to take the child back to your country should you be deported. If you have joint physical custody of a child and are a non-citizen, then you will have to share the child with the other parent. In this situation, if you are deported you will have to leave the child behind because you don’t have the right to take that child out of the country. In some cases, non-citizens will be granted permanent residency because of a child custody agreement.
If you are involved in a joint-custody arrangement, then you should tell your immigration lawyer. This fact may heavily weigh in on the court’s decision to let your remain in the country. Immigration judges have the right to make a decision regarding family law based on the nature of the case, because there are not written rules when these two areas of law intersect. When you are dealing with family law and immigration law at the same time, you will still want an immigration attorney at your side to help.