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The mother and father are both Honduran citizens. They had a child in 2009, born in Honduras. The parents married in 2012 but the following year they stopped living together. The child lived with the mother but the father saw him regularly. They never divorced nor sought a formal custody agreement.

In May 2014, without the father’s knowledge, the mother brought the child illegally to the United States. They were arrested by immigration authorities. Upon their release they resided in Nashville for five months and then moved to New Orleans to live with the mother’s boyfriend.

The father continued to look for the child and the US State Department located them in May 2015. The father then made an application for return under the 1980 Convention, 14 months after the removal of the child.

The District Court refused to order the return of the child as they found that he was well-settled in his new environment.

The father appealed the decision.

Appeal allowed, return ordered.

Non-Convention Issues

The court held that that immigration status is neither dispositive nor subject to categorical rules, but instead is one relevant factor in a multi-factor test. Proper application of the framework does not assign automatic treatment to any particular type of immigration status and so an individualized, fact-specific inquiry is necessary in every case.

In this case, the fact that the mother and child were involved in deportation proceedings should be taken into consideration and did not find the child to be well-settled in their new environment.