Location: Illinois
Father moved to: Mexico
3 children ages 8, 7, 5
I’ll try to make this as simple as possible.
I have full custody. Father sees them on weekends. We are supposed to go 50/50 on school decisions, religion, medical, etc
He’s supposed to pay child support and half of the children’s insurance be he has not once in the last 4 years. I have done EVERYTHING.
He is undocumented, born in Mexico.
He fled back to Mexico in fear of deportation and I doubt he’ll ever come back.
How do I go to court about this without a lawyer? I just want it to be legally know that he absolutely gone, never paid child support and to make medical and school sign up easier.
Comments
This awnser will not be helpful because I am currently navigating the same situation with my daughter when her mom left to South America and your experience may differ.
What I can tell you though is that court service if you want to take him back to court for a modification will need to be filed through the Hague Convention and you will need to know his approximate location for service in the country.
If you want to enforce any part of the United States court order in Mexico including child support you will need to obtain a lawyer in Mexico (can find a list on the USA embassy website for mexico or email the embassy and have them send you the list). They will need to file to have any order enforced and it will need to go before a judge in that country.
Your other option since you have full custody is to not worry about it unless he comes back and files a motion to change the order.
EDIT: To better explain Hague Convention. Basically you file service with the federal goverment who sends it to the goverment of the country that then sends it to local and it is very time consuming. Expect at least a 3 month delay with no complications. Mine has been going on for 15 months though as she has been avoiding service.