Washington Post (March 30, 2004).

American Custody Battle Crosses Borders.

U.S. Citizens Living Abroad Forced Into German Court by International Agreement

By John Burgess

BERLIN -- U.S. marshals served Maureen Hirts with a complaint last May at her parents' house in Pennsylvania -- her estranged husband in Germany had alleged that she had abducted their two small children from that country. He wanted them returned.

After a hearing, court papers show, a U.S. federal court upheld the complaint. The father, Henri Hirts, traveled to Pennsylvania and in August took the children back to Germany; Maureen Hirts followed two days later.

Now she and her husband are battling it out in a German family court over where and with whom the children will live.

In an era when international marriages are common, hundreds of cross-border custody fights end up in court. Normally, the disputes involve parents of different nationalities. But in this case, both parents are American citizens, as are the children, and a U.S. court has sent the dispute to Germany, citing requirements of a 1980 international agreement on abductions signed in the Dutch seat of government, The Hague.

The case has drawn the attention of the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, because Maureen Hirts has been living since late last year in a German government shelter in the southern town of Friedberg. The two children spend extended periods there as well; their father has custody on weekends.

In an interview, she said she and the children were forced into the shelter because her husband failed to make support payments; by his account, legal maneuvering by her lawyers froze his finances and made it impossible to pay.

"We're all American citizens, we all ought to go back to the United States," Maureen Hirts said. "I'm trapped here in Germany, I'm homeless. . . . It's The Hague totally gone wrong."

"The Hague has done what it was supposed to do," countered her husband, 38. "This needs now to be fought out in German courts."

The legal logic of hearing the case in Germany stems from the Hague agreement, known formally as the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. It states that these cases must be sorted out in the country that is the children's place of "habitual residence." The U.S. court ruled that Germany was that place.

One of the children, who was 1 when his father took him back to Germany, was born here; the other, 2 at the time, had lived in Germany for 14 months. Children born to foreign parents in Germany do not automatically qualify for German citizenship, though they can receive it at age 21 if certain conditions are met. Their father, though a U.S. citizen, was born and raised in Germany, and his parents live here.

Nancy Hammer, international director for the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said that on first glance, deciding the case of four American citizens in Germany might seem to make no sense. But under the convention "what you're trying to determine is, where has the center of the child's life been?" In some cases, she said, courts have determined that if a family was living abroad but intended to return to the United States, the case should be decided there.

Countries that have signed on to the Hague convention, Hammer said, should move toward a system that guarantees a quick resolution of the case after the country of litigation has been selected. "If you're both local, if something takes four years to be resolved it doesn't have the same kind of impact as if you are wanting to return across an ocean," she said.

For years, the United States has had an off-again, on-again dispute with Germany over allegations that when U.S. and German citizens come to court in Germany over child custody, the German is almost always favored, to the point that the American parent can lose contact with the child. The German side argues that courts decide cases based on what is best for the children.

A U.S. consulate officer in Germany said that the U.S. government is in touch with the German government about the Hirts case, in search of a quick resolution by the judicial system here. "This is a very unusual situation," the officer said. "We as the U.S. government deeply regret the circumstances that have caused an AmericanThe officer said the U.S. government is not taking sides and was only acting to aid U.S. citizens in distress in a foreign country. Consulate officials have been helping members of the U.S. community to donate clothes and other essentials for the Hirts children and are trying to initiate mediation between the parents.

Henri and Maureen had been together for 18 years, both as an unmarried couple and married, the two sides say. In 1988, they moved to Germany and the Netherlands for four years. In January 2002, they moved from Wichita to Germany, where Henri had been offered a job with an aerospace company. They took their toddler daughter Miranda with them; son Liam was born in Germany in August that year.

In March 2003, the family flew back to the United States. By Maureen's account, there was an understanding between her and Henri that this was going to be a permanent move back to the United States. By Henri's, it was just a visit. This disagreement became the key to the Hague legal fight.

He returned to Germany later in March. She did not, staying in her parents' house in Pennsylvania with the children, and refusing his subsequent requests that all three come back to Germany. She contends that his behavior had become erratic and that it was best for the children to remain in the United States; he denies allegations of such behavior and says her refusal to return was a surprise. "We had an excellent relationship to the point that she informed me she was not coming back," he said.

On July 25, Judge James Knoll Gardner of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of Henri's Hague petition, citing such actions as the purchase of round-trip tickets from Germany as proof the family intended to return there. Henri flew back to pick up the children.

Maureen returned to Germany as well, and said in an interview that as a mother she felt she had no choice but to remain near her children. In September, a German family court conducted a hearing on the dispute. The compromise was a deal in which she agreed to stay in Germany, with his support, at least until their son's fourth birthday, in 2006.

They shared an apartment for a while, using it at different hours, but each side accused the other of mishandling the arrangement.

In early March, a court awarded Maureen back support. She said recently that this opens the door to leaving the shelter and finding an apartment.

In the meantime, Maureen Hirts hopes to reverse the agreement of last September by which the children would remain in Germany for now. She wants to take them back to the United States; she contends that her husband could visit them as often as he wanted. He says they must remain in Germany, because his life is here and if they go away now he will become a stranger to them.

They were supposed to meet in court this month, but that hearing has been delayed indefinitely as a result of a new judge taking over the case.

Maureen and Henri are now separated; under German law, divorcing couples must first be separated for a year. They continue to feud. Henri says his wife has not given him information about what his children do most of the week. "I'm not being told by her or her attorney where they are going to school, where they live, or if they're in the hospital," he said.

Maureen faults living conditions at the shelter. "It's filthy," she said. "At one point there were 17 people using one bathroom here. I can't imagine this was ever the intention of Hague, to do this to us."