Child visiting Canada

[Louie101]

What is the name of your state? NY

I have full custody of my son, he was born in Canada but I changed his citizenship to American when I moved back to the states from Canada.
His father who is canadian lives far away and has minimal contact with my son.
His parents feel I should let their grandson spend every other weekend with them. I do not think it's in his best interest, they bad mouth my family and let him behave badly. I 'm not sure what their rights are, any advice?

 

[stealth2]

No idea, since you don't mention where the order originated.

 

[nextwife]

And if there IS a court order, what it states. We can't comment on Canadian law, but in the US a C.O. isn't void just because a parent chose the change their child's citizenship and doesn't like their ex's family.

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state? NY

I have full custody of my son, he was born in Canada but I changed his citizenship to American when I moved back to the states from Canada.
His father who is canadian lives far away and has minimal contact with my son.
His parents feel I should let their grandson spend every other weekend with them. I do not think it's in his best interest, they bad mouth my family and let him behave badly. I 'm not sure what their rights are, any advice?

Unless there is a court order giving the grandparents the right to visitation, you DO NOT have to give them visitation. They do not have any "rights" absent a court order.

In addition, they even if any court orders between you and the father are under the jursidiction of Canada, their action would be separate and would have to be filed in your state.

 

[stealth2]

LDi - do you know what Canadian laws are regarding grandparents' rights? Just curious.

 

[Kansas4me]

Stealth,

Wouldn't it be US law for her since she is a US citizen residing in the US?

 

[djohnson]

Not if it's a canadian order and father remains there. I would think they would retain jurisdiction also.

What harm is it in letting him see them sometimes, but not every other weekend, but maybe once a month. If someone tried to keep my grandchildren away from me I might bad mouth them too.

 

[stealth2]

Depends - if she has an order out of Canada, she's likely bound by it until/unless jurisdiction is moved to the US.

 

[Kansas4me]

Ah, so we (meaning American courts) will uphold and enforce a canadian CS/CO?

So what happens if she lets the child go to canada to visit and they refuse to give him back?

You know all those lifetime movie shows were they take the kid to afghanastan or whatever and we are powerless to do anything.

 

[Zephyr]

She has a canadian order- enforceable in canada, and even if she had a us order, canada and afg. are worlds apart as far as how they cooperate with us.

 

[LdiJ]

LDi - do you know what Canadian laws are regarding grandparents' rights? Just curious.

Yeah, actually I do...our group has/has had a lot of Canadian members too so we keep up on both Canada and the US.....and try to at least marginally keep up on what is going on in the UK and Australia as well.

Canada is almost the same as the US...perhaps a little more "pro-grandparent" in some provinces as far as how much visitation gets ordered if the gps win...but still very similar. They actually patterned their laws after ours...and are now patterning them again...scaling back...just as we are doing.

There are also some "issues" in this case, that are more international in scope.
If the child is a US citizen, living in the US, the grandparents would definitely have to come here to get a visitation order. There is almost no chance that Canada would make orders and it would even be a waste of the gp's time anyway....because in order to get them enforced they would pretty much have to go through the whole process here anyway.

 

[Louie101]

The custody issue was dealt with in Canada before he became a citizen. He visits once a month now, hopefully that will be enough. They have in the past not brought him home on time..it's a little nerve racking..I don't care what they think about me, I do care how they behave in front of my child. I have asked them many times to watch what they say and do and it falls on deaf ears.
I hope to not have to resort to keeping him away from them since he doesn't have much contact with his father. Thanks for the info

 

[LdiJ]

Just to comment on a few things said by some of the other posters.

Yes, Canada and the US cooperate on Custody/Child Support/Visitation....between parents. However its costly to get orders enforced across borders. Not so much with child support though, that seems to work quite smoothly between some Canadian provinces and some US states.

However jurisdiction for the purposes of custody/visitation between parents is not the same as jurisdiction for visitation between parents and a third party. This applies whether you are talking about state to state, or country to country. The grandparent's case would be a separate case...therefore it would have to be heard in the state of the child's legal residence...or the country of the child's legal residence. With the exception of a handful of states...grandparent's don't get to "piggy-back" onto their own child's case....and even in the ones where they can, its in the case of divorce only.

 

[nagol818]

Thank you LdiJ.
Great thread! Very informative and helpful!