Back to: California Family Law
NOTES & RESOURCES
- Go directly to download the Request for Order form FL-300.
- Go directly to download the Temporary Emergency (Ex Parte) Orders form FL-305.
- Go directly to download the Child Abduction Prevention Order Attachment form FL-341(B).
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
How to Get a Child Abduction Prevention Order
Find form FL-341(b), the child abduction prevention order. If the other parent is going to remove the child from your custody, then the court can do a prevention order. You’re going to have to actually check these off for the court. Let’s look at the separate sections of this form.
Reasons for a Child Abduction Prevention Order
They violated or threatened to violate a custody and visitation order as they did in the past.
They don’t have strong ties to California. For example, they’re from Mexico, their house is in Mexico, and they really only come for visitation, but now they don’t want to do that anymore, and they’re going to take the children.
They’ve done things to make it easy for them to take the children away without any permission. Examples include:
- quitting their job
- closing a bank account
- they got rid of the assets
- sold their home
- they ended their lease
- they’ve hidden or destroyed documents
- they’ve applied for a passport, birth certificate or school or medical records of the children
- or have done something else.
They have a history of domestic violence, child abuse, or just not cooperating with the other parent or party and parenting. And that’s likely the option here. If they have a criminal record that also can go against them. Or they have family and emotional ties to another state, region, county or foreign country. If this is checked, then you have to have something else also checked.
Posting a Bond to Ensure Return of Your Child
If the court does find that that is appropriate, then it will further order for visitation and it may order that somebody posts a bond – that’s just money to ensure that the children are not removed, or if they are removed then bond is in fact going to be posted.
Moving and Travelling with the Children
They must not move from the location without permission in writing or court order. That may include from the children’s current school district. They can’t travel with the children outside of the county, the U.S., or California. The party must register this order in whatever state they visit, before the children can travel to the other state for visits. They cannot apply for passports or any other vital documents that can be used for travel, such as a visa or birth certificate. The court can also state that the children’s passports in the party’s possession will be turned in to the other party or the court or one of the attorneys, so that travel does not take place. The court may also order the other parent to give you the following before traveling: travel itinerary, round trip airlines, address and phone numbers and open airline ticket, things like that that would help prevent this abduction.
Must notify the embassy or the consulate. Can get a custody and visitation order equivalent to the most recent U.S. order before the children may travel to that country for visits. So if they can go to a different country and that country has very different orders than what we have here, then that person has the duty to get an order in that country before being able to visit it. That order must be similar to the one that they have existing here, to ensure that it will be complied with.
Enforcing a Child Abduction Prevention Order
As to enforcing the order, the court authorizes any law enforcement in this county to contact the child abduction unit. And they’ll provide the phone number and address of your local child abduction unit of the Office of the District Attorney.
Then, the judge can make any other orders that the court deems to be appropriate.
This is going to be valid in any other state, in any country that has signed the Hague Convention on Child Abduction.
It also provides notice to other states and countries that this court has jurisdiction over the child and can make child custody orders, and that they are part of the Hague Convention for International Abduction.
If jurisdiction is based on other factors then they are listed in item 13 above. That could mean emergency authority to make orders in this particular case. This is when it gets a lot more complicated and you will need to watch a separate video on how this applies about the Hague Convention and especially in child abduction prevention cases that are international.
We hope that you have found this helpful and thank you for your time.