I am foreign national living in USA. I have primary custody of my child (US court order) however the mother, a Taiwan citizen, took our child back to Taiwan. Our child was born in USA but is also Taiwanese national. I am not on the household registration and mum is now asking me to come and collect our child so the child can return back to the USA to be with dad. I remember reading somewhere that another father who wanted to take his child to the USA was stopped at Taiwanese exit immigration when leaving the country because he was not on the household registration and wasnt allowed to take his child back to the USA - The father in this situation was still happily married to the childs mum as well and mum was even at the airport saying dad was ok to take their child to the USA.
Any help or advice would be appreciated. Could i even be accused of kidnapping if i am supposed to be on the household registration even though i have valid US court order?
Whether or not you are on the household registration is not important.
You will need your childâs Taiwanese passport (assuming that he/she entered Taiwan on that) and, just to be sure, written permission from your ex-wife.
It sounds like your ex-wife took your child back to Taiwan without your permission ? It wouldnât be the first time that has happened, and I am talking from my own experience. Although in theory you should be able to enforce the US court order in Taiwan, in practice it wonât happen.
Without the motherâs permission and compliance, your child is not going anywhere; however assuming your ex genuinely wants and agrees for you to take your child back, as you have indicated, then there will be no problems.
Thanks all. So exit immigration wont query why our child is traveling on his Taiwanese passport and i am not on the household registration and where is this man (mum tells me i am not even recognized as the father in Taiwan) going with this child he had no relationship with? I just dont trust mum because of past history and knowing she would love to get revenge on me and have me in Taiwanese jail.
Well thats the big question, to me there is one thing letting me take our child but when i get to immigration and if she was contacted i could just see her indicating that she hadnt given me permission. Thats the whole reasoning about asking if i had to be on the household registration and i suppose i forgot to add i have to be recognized as the childs father in Taiwan, and how does one go about that? Is a US court order sufficient?
Now the more amazing thing today was the local USA police who worked in the child abduction unit told me to get the childs Taiwanese passport that was being held by the courts here and using that to take the child out of Taiwan. I told them i didnt think that would be to smart given the mother had reported that passport lost and now there was a man, claiming to be the father, removing the child from Taiwan with no recognition he is dad in Taiwan on a lost / stolen passport.
[quote=âpugwashâ]Well thats the big question, to me there is one thing letting me take our child but when I get to immigration and if she was contacted i could just see her indicating that she hadnt given me permission. Thats the whole reasoning about asking if I had to be on the household registration and i suppose I forgot to add i have to be recognized as the childs father in Taiwan, and how does one go about that? Is a US court order sufficient?
Now the more amazing thing today was the local USA police who worked in the child abduction unit told me to get the childs Taiwanese passport that was being held by the courts here and using that to take the child out of Taiwan. I told them i didnt think that would be to smart given the mother had reported that passport lost and now there was a man, claiming to be the father, removing the child from Taiwan with no recognition he is dad in Taiwan on a lost / stolen passport.[/quote]
You need an authorized written permission from your wife. If she has any wrong intentions, she will show off right away, then you can think about the next move like filing abduction case in US. Get it with witness signatures and attested so she canât deny when the time comes. Above all, remain polite to your wife (and her relatives+friends) until this matter is settled.
[quote=âpugwashâ]Well thats the big question, to me there is one thing letting me take our child but when I get to immigration and if she was contacted i could just see her indicating that she hadnt given me permission. Thats the whole reasoning about asking if I had to be on the household registration and i suppose I forgot to add i have to be recognized as the childs father in Taiwan, and how does one go about that? Is a US court order sufficient?
Now the more amazing thing today was the local USA police who worked in the child abduction unit told me to get the childs Taiwanese passport that was being held by the courts here and using that to take the child out of Taiwan. I told them i didnt think that would be to smart given the mother had reported that passport lost and now there was a man, claiming to be the father, removing the child from Taiwan with no recognition he is dad in Taiwan on a lost / stolen passport.[/quote]
OP, you are not making yourself clear here. Firstly you said that your ex has invited you to Taiwan to come and collect your child. And here you say that, if asked, she is likely to deny that she has given you permission to remove your child from Taiwan.
Perhaps it went this way: she abducted your child to Taiwan despite a US court order giving you custody; you told her that you wanted your child back and she said âOK, you come here and collect him/her thenâ. This is just a Taiwanese way of saying âno chanceâ. I know because I have heard it before.
If this is the way she is, I would be surprised if she even let you see your child when you return to Taiwan, let alone take them out of the country.
You are not being too clear either about the Taiwanese passport that is being held by the courts in the USA. If they still have it, then she must have obtained another one from the TW Embassy in the USA. Which would be an incredible piece of incompetence on behalf of your justice system because the first thing that the courts should have done is to bind the TW Embassy not to release any travel documents for your child. So what happened there ?
And where did your ex report the Taiwanese passport lost ?
I am sorry, but a lot of things are not making sense here. You have anything else to tell us to make things clearer ?
[quote=âpgdaddy1â]Perhaps it went this way: she abducted your child to Taiwan despite a US court order giving you custody; you told her that you wanted your child back and she said âOK, you come here and collect him/her thenâ. This is just a Taiwanese way of saying âno chanceâ. I know because I have heard it before.
[/quote]
Given her behaviour in the past this is what i am expecting.
Well the reason i think she might let me take the child and then call the police is she could have me put in jail just to get back at me. She ended up on Domestic Violence charges here in the USA for attacking me and spent 3 days in the local jail. Not a very nice experience for anyone. So I wouldnt put it past her to get back at me and send me to experience what she had to. And an easy way to get me out of the picture.
I think you got it correct. The local family court actually does not seem to have its act together. We (my lawyer and myself) have told them many times that mum might abscond with the child, but they never listened. The only thing the court did was to take the Taiwanese passport and keep it at the court under lock and key. They had no interest in talking to the TW Embassy or consulate. Mum would never run off would she?
mum told me she reported the âlostâ passport to the TW Consulate in LA and used the original birth certificate that she had (it doesnt list me as dad) to obtain an emergency passport so they could leave the USA.
What I need now is hopefully some evidence to show the local Judge that even though mum says âcome get your childâ that Taiwan has all these laws that would stop me from taking the child. And also to give this information to the local DAâs office so they can better assist me in what actions we need to take so my child can come home.
Pgdaddy is right . Unless the mom wants you to take your child out of the country and provides his/her taiwan passport to do so, you have zero chance. And I highly doubt that she has such an intention.
US court orders have no effect on such cases in Taiwan as the child is a Taiwanese citizen and is back in his/her âownâ country. And Taiwan is not a signatory to any international agreements regarding the such.
You have no chance but to patch up relations and hope for the best As Pgdaddy is doing.
p.s. I doubt the TW consulate in the USA would stop itself from giving her child an emergency passport as his/her passport was âlostâ. The US courts have no jurisdiction over if or not the TW consulate will issue a passport to one of its citizens.
The US govt could put the child on a âno flyâ list. That will stop them from leaving. But it cant stop the TW consulate from issuing another passport. Although even on a no fly list the mom could take the child to Canada or Mexico and then fly back to Taiwan.
I wish i had confidence in that, but even in the USA every time i went to see my child the police where involved because mum always had some issue. The court even told her to clean up her act else she would feel the consequences. Well she never clean her act up, i was given majority custody and off mum went back to Taiwan. Now its trying to work out what tricks she could play on me in Taiwan and what trouble i could end up in. Even with court order in hand, the USA police at times where reluctant to help, probably got more important crimes to resolve. Hence questions around exit immigration, dont want to be thinking things worked out great, mum is willing to co-operate and then all of a sudden i am taken to one side. Local DA police investigators even told me they seen it were dad thought he was getting along with mum, only for the police to be called onto dad.
I donât know how to do it, and I donât think itâs very helpful of me to say this, but I think you need to do something underhanded to get your child back. Something involving a surreptitious boat trip to Okinawa or some other jurisdiction from which you can head home with your child. Iâd rather spend my money on hired goons than lawyers and I think itâd have a better chance of success. Youâre not planning on coming back once youâve got your child anyway, are you?
Your case reminded me of another one with similar tones back in 2006. The American father, who was unmarried to the Taiwanese mother, won custody of their child in a court of law in the US. The Taiwanese mother high-tailed it to the nearest TECO and got a passport for her daughter and absconded with the child back to Taiwan. He arrived in Taiwan with his lawyers and all his legal documentation from the US court in order to get his daughter back. Guess how it turned out for him? The same way itâs going to turn out for you.
You can read the entire 37 pages of the original thread from May 2006, below.
You are right when you say itâs not helpful. Not at all. Putting desperate ideas into a desperate manâs head. And believe me, any âhired goonsâ who may offer to help the OP smuggle himself and his child out of Taiwan are most probably going strip him of most of his money and leave him in a much, much worse situation.
[quote=âNorthcoast Surferâ]Your case reminded me of another one with similar tones back in 2006. The American father, who was unmarried to the Taiwanese mother, won custody of their child in a court of law in the US. The Taiwanese mother high-tailed it to the nearest TECO and got a passport for her daughter and absconded with the child back to Taiwan. He arrived in Taiwan with his lawyers and all his legal documentation from the US court in order to get his daughter back. Guess how it turned out for him? The same way itâs going to turn out for you.
You can read the entire 37 pages of the original thread from May 2006, below.
[/quote]
About her having suicidal tendencies, that should never be taken too seriously. Itâs a pretty common threat for Taiwanese women to make when their relationship is in trouble.
Northcoast: Wasnât that the one where the father was insanely rich and was trying to make the mother out to be a stripper? Where he was married to another woman and claiming that theyâd paid the mother to be a surrogate or some such thing, but the story kept changing all the time (sheâs my ex - sheâs a stripping whore who just wants money - sheâs a surrogateâŚI think that was the process)
If it is, I remember the more I read of that the more I was rooting for the mother. Daddy came across as a bit of a scumbag. And by âbit ofâ, I mean âratherâ.
And to get back on topic, stay away from the goons unless youâre VERY good friends with one of them. Snakeheads are best left alone.
You wonât be able to get your child out of Taiwan without a Taiwanese passport, though. I think pgdaddyâs advice is the best - try and patch it up, unless you feel your child would be in danger with the mother.
Taiwan is quite heavily controlled. Some illegals do get in, but Iv not heard of many people getting OUT !
A few years ago ran into an acquaintance in Fulung who was into heading out to open sea and buying mainland products and then smuggling them back in. They had high powered speedboats. And he told me that the TAiwan Coast Guard occasionally fires upon them. So they take that sort of stuff seriously.
I wouldnât try to smuggle your child out, its not even remotely possible.
[quote=âtsukinodeynatsuâ]Northcoast: Wasnât that the one where the father was insanely rich and was trying to make the mother out to be a stripper? Where he was married to another woman and claiming that theyâd paid the mother to be a surrogate or some such thing, but the story kept changing all the time (sheâs my ex - sheâs a stripping whore who just wants money - sheâs a surrogateâŚI think that was the process)
If it is, I remember the more I read of that the more I was rooting for the mother. Daddy came across as a bit of a scumbag. And by âbit ofâ, I mean âratherâ.[/quote]
It doesnât matter what anyone thinks of the father and whether or not heâs a scumbag or not. In fact, it doesnât matter that the mother was proven to be a prostitute for that matter! The only issue is the law. A US court of law ruled in the fatherâs favor! The mother didnât agree with the courtâs ruling so she illegally obtained a Taiwan passport with the assistance of the TECO and then kidnapped her child and brought her back to Taiwan. Sheâs now a fugitive from justice for parental kidnapping and will be arrested by Interpol if she steps off this island. To root for the mother is to disregard rules and law, which of course is the Taiwan way! There are no rules, laws, or standards of conduct that are important enough that a Taiwanese canât simply ignore because they donât want to follow them!
The point of this object lesson is that this newest OP is in exactly the same boat. Now, that the mother of his child has illegally obtained a passport with yet again the help of the TECO and kidnapped their child back to Taiwan, he has no chance of getting his child back to the US unless she allows it.
Her actions were LEGAL under Taiwan law. Taiwan has not signed any international agreements in such matters.
The fact that she committed a crime outside of Taiwan does not fall under Taiwan jurisdiction, outside of any agreements governing the such.
The Taiwan govt initially âsidedâ with the father. But the law is the law. And in Taiwan, Taiwan laws govern.
The US govt even warns its citizens that it is under the law of nations that they find themselves in.
by the way, the Japanese govt is equally hardnose . Try getting a Japanese dual national out of japan. Even if he/ she was âkidnappedâ and brought to Japan and is a dual citizen of Japan and some other nation.
and the US govt has no say in whether the Taiwan govt wishes to issue a passport to one of its citizens or not. Uncle Sam has no say in this . He could seal his borders and make it hard for them to leave but once they left, theres nothing much he can do if they land in Taiwan.
pps. The govt of Taiwan is largely unrecognized by most of the world and the govt does not legally even exist. The whole ROC on the rock is illegal in the first instance :roflmao:
If the OP were to rescue his kidnapped child from some shitheap third world country with a non-functioning government weâd all be cheering him on, but for some reason the suggestion of employing underhanded methods to retrieve his child on this island whose government and legal system pays only the barest lip service to the rule of law is a bad idea and he should play by the rules - rules that his mental bitch of an ex is only too happy to ignore! His child was kidnapped, and itâs perfectly obvious that Taiwanâs fucked-up concept of right, wrong, and national sovereignty means that this fatherâs rights are going to continue to be ignored while the mother ends up drumming up sympathy for herself in a media circus that makes the father look like the wrongdoer and celebrates the triumph of Taiwanese âlawâ over being told what to do by the barbaric USAâŚ
I think heâll spend far less money and be less frustrated paying my preferred choice of goons than the goons who call themselves lawyers here.
Obviously, if he were somehow able to convince the mother to let him have the child back, itâd be the best route, but only the OP knows if thatâs even remotely probable.
