In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth ___________________________ No. 02-18-00327-CV ___________________________ IN THE INTEREST OF S.E. AND E.E., MINOR CHILDREN On Appeal from the 442nd District Court Denton County, Texas Trial Court No. 18-6826-16 Before Sudderth, C.J.; Gabriel and Wallach, JJ.1 Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth 1 The Honorable Mike Wallach, Judge of the 348th District Court of Tarrant County, sitting by assignment of the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court pursuant to section 74.003(h) of the government code. See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 74.003(h). MEMORANDUM OPINION I. Introduction S.E. and E.E. were born in Michigan and lived there with their parents— Appellant Father, a citizen of Argentina, and Appellee Mother, a citizen of the United States—until Father was deported in September 2015. After the family moved to Argentina, Father and Mother separated. In September 2017, Mother received permission from a court in Argentina to take the children back to the United States for 90 days. After Mother’s father died on December 3, 2017, Mother petitioned for an extension of time to keep the children abroad, but the Argentine court denied her request and ordered her to return the children by January 26, 2018. Mother did not comply. On August 2, 2018, Father filed a verified petition in Denton County district court under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague Convention) and the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), which implemented the treaty in the United States,2 seeking S.E. and E.E.’s 2 In its findings set out in the ICARA, Congress explained that The Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, done at The Hague on October 25, 1980, establishes legal rights and procedures for the prompt return of children who have been wrongfully removed or retained, as well as for securing the exercise of visitation rights. Children who are wrongfully removed or retained within the meaning of the Convention are to be promptly returned unless one of the narrow exceptions set forth in the Convention applies. The Convention provides a sound treaty framework to help resolve the 2 return to Argentina. See 22 U.S.C.A. §§ 9001–9011. In his petition, Father alleged that the children had been habitually resident in Argentina under article 3 of the Hague Convention and that the children were wrongfully removed from Argentina and wrongfully retained in the United States under articles 3 and 5 of the Hague Convention. He sought issuance of a show cause order to be served on Mother for a hearing and asked for permission to appear by video or telephonically if he could not obtain a humanitarian visa to enter the United States for the hearing. See Tex. Fam. Code Ann. §§ 152.001–.317. Mother responded that the children’s habitual residence was the United States—not Argentina—such that the Hague Convention did not apply. She further asserted that if the Hague Convention applied, then the “grave risk” exception—that the children’s return would expose them to a ...
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