Second Circuit — Child Custody: Asuncion Mota v. Rivera Castillo

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Child Custody

International Child Abduction Remedies Act

Asuncion Mota v. Rivera Castillo
12-180-cv
Judges Hall, Carney and Berman

Background: The defendant appealed from the grant of plaintiff’s petition for the return of his five-year-old daughter to the mother’s custody in Mexico. The child and the parents were all citizens of Mexico, but the father traveled to New York to find work, leaving the child and her mother in Mexico. When the child was three, the parents smuggled the child to New York to live with her father, but the mother failed in her repeated attempts to join the two in the U.S. The mother then filed a petition to regain custody of her daughter.

Ruling: The Second Circuit affirmed. In applying the Hague Convention as implemented by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act, the Second Circuit held that the child was a habitual resident of Mexico when her father, the defendant, retained the child in the U.S. in violation of the plaintiff’s custodial rights under Mexican law.

Carloyn A. Kubitschek of Lansner & Kubitschek for the defendant-appellant; Christopher M. Strongosky of DLA Piper US LLP for the plaintiff-appellee