An immigrant mother’s long battle with the American justice system to gain custody of son

It had been many days since Sumit had not called her. Ritika was quite miserable. One day, she woke up in the morning and turned her computer on to check her emails. Checking her emails was the first thing she would do right after waking up in the morning. Those were the days when video-calling
applications such as FaceTime or Hangouts were not available.

The email was the only way to stay connected with people. When she opened her inbox, she was surprised to see an email from an anonymous ID as she had not shared her email address with any
new person recently. She clicked on the email curiously. The content of the email was enough to shatter her. There were some snapshots of a conversation between Sumit and an unknown woman. The conversation showed that he had been making plans to marry another woman. He was telling her that his wife had left him and their son. He had filed for divorce from India. He had convinced that woman that he needed a life partner who could love him and his son. Ritika was shocked to read that conversation. She knew that he had never loved her, but she had never expected such a shameful act from him ever.

Ritika immediately called Sumit. When he picked up, she directly confronted him with the email she had received.

“C’mon, Ritika! Somebody has played a joke on you. How can you believe in an unknown email?” Sumit answered angrily.

“This email contains screenshots of your conversation with that woman. It was your email ID, Sumit. Don’t try to fool me,” Ritika responded in a harsh tone.

“Oh, Ritika! I totally forgot to tell you that my email account was hacked a few days ago. Actually, some of my business rivals desperately want to break our marriage,” Sumit came up with a fake story.

“You have no idea how much I miss you and how hard I am trying to get your paperwork completed as early as possible. Sweetheart! I love you. We are family, dear. You are supposed to trust me. Soon we will be together forever,” Sumit further added. He was extraordinarily nice to Ritika. But this time, she didn’t fall into his trap.

It had nearly been seven months since she was in India. Her intuition told her that it was time to take some action. Ritika told the entire story to her family. She wanted them to help her with filing a petition with the Indian Court and registering a complaint with the US Consulate in India.

Her father and brothers helped her in every possible way. Everyone in her family took their turns. They hired an attorney in India, approached the Indian Court, the US Consulate, the Indian Overseas Ministry, and the Child abduction unit in Washington DC They did everything that they could to help her. When Ritika went to file a complaint in the US Consulate, she had to wait outside for hours. Finally, her turn came, and she told everything that had happened since she returned to India to the officers in charge.

After hearing her story, they asked for the documented proofs of her marriage and her son’s birth certificate. She told them she didn’t have her marriage certificate and her son’s birth certificate with her in India. Everything had been left behind in America. She had come back to India with her husband for a short trip which had turned into a never-ending nightmare. The officers told her that it was mandatory for her to provide documented evidence to the US Consulate for processing her case against her husband.

Ritika tried to reach some NGOs in America. She wrote to eight NGOs or as they say in USA non profits about her case. One of them responded to her positively and began guiding her. Slowly and gradually, with the help of this nonprofit, she could obtain the birth certificate of her child from the county in which Rohan was born, and she got a copy of her Hindu wedding certificate locally. Ritika had lived in the United States for few years, yet she did not know that each State had different counties. She had
to answer a lot of questions, but the Domestic Violence Women Nonprofit advocate and counsellor assisted her in understanding the logistics over the phone. She could, this way, obtain the birth certificate from County Recorder’s office. Those were the days when there was not much of technology and phone was more of a medium in India.

Ritika submitted all the documents to the US Consulate for proceedings. They immediately began the process.

As the first step of the process, they helped her with applying for parole through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. They said that they could let her go back to the US once the parole was approved. It usually took 60 days to get a response, but in her case, it was about 90 days. Even though it was a long process, she was the wife and mother of US citizens.

She had the right to be in the country on humanitarian grounds, especially knowing how she was separated from her child by fraud. After applying for parole with the help of the US Consulate, she went to the Indian Overseas Ministry to get her connected to the Indian Consulate in the US. They lodged her case at the Indian Consulate. She also filed a case for her son’s full custody with the Indian Court. She didn’t spare any efforts for reuniting with her son.

Excerpted with permission from Custodial Battle: The Chronicles of an Immigrant Mother Who Was Delayed Justice in Family Law Due to Immigration Status, Sheetal Ohri, Paramount Publishers.