DD’s dad has taken her overseas and won’t bring her back

Excellent advice, please take it.

He can't have gotten her a US passport without you knowing OP (I'm an American in the UK with a child born here)

As she was born abroad she is not officially a US citizen unless he has gone through the process to confirm this (eg if he was also born abroad he may not be able to pass citizenship on)

Follow the expert advice here and you will get her back. You have to stay strong for her.

This is 💯 what he will have done.

Dual citizenship like him, and then straight into the country with her dad no questions asked really because why would they object to a child returning to one of their home countries with their dad.

It might take years to get her back if he doesn’t agree to it.

How is this even possible? You can't just rock up to US immigration and say, "Hi! Dual citizen here. This is my DD who is a British citizen and I'm bringing her into the country".

Do you know without doubt he's in NY? Could he have told you that to put you off the scent?

Can you call his office switchboard in NY and ask for him to check? Google it.

Pretend you're a business contact rather than personal, make up a name and company name. If they put you through, hang up. If they say they don't have an employee by that name, then you have your answer, although he may not have started there yet if he's gone over with a child and took time out to organise childcare. Try again in another week.

Once you've checked that he is NY, you need to get on a plane, go to his office and loudly tell the whole office he's abducted your child. Refuse to leave until he's come out to speak to you, let them call the police and tell them they need to check the child's welfare as you are extremely worried about his state of mind and as her parent, you are entitled to know the address she's living at.

Take someone with you as support and ensure you have her birth certificate, proof of residency, school reports, GP appointment letters and anything else that proves habitual residency, together with emails, texts showing your access arrangements and him saying he was taking her without permission.

He may not give her back but at least everyone will know what he's done, you've checked the child's welfare and the police will see that she wants to go home so may help.

He has dual citizenship

I am a Brit who is also now American and runs HR and IR for a multi billion dollar corporation. I can tell you that we would absolutely get that individual in for meetings immediately and threaten termination. Our contracts have morality clauses and any press which reflects poorly on the company can result in immediate termination. If you want things to move quickly, make it a press issue for the company he has moved to be with.

She needs a solicitor specialising in international private law and international child abduction

Say if they then fired him. Doesn’t mean he will then simply return. He could then move on somewhere else.

She can’t look unstable and controlling it will go against her and play into his hand of the ‘ fleeing’ abuse or whatever narrative he comes up with.

I’m in awe of some of the absolutely incredible knowledge here. I hope you feel the support for you here. Praying so much your girl is returned to you soon

Please ignore the posters telling you to contact his employer. Whilst desperate times call for desperate measures and you are undoubtedly going out of your mind with worry, you need to remain rational and focused on the steps that can actually help get your daughter home.

His employer is very unlikely to get involved in a private family-law dispute, and they certainly cannot order him to return DD. Contacting them directly could simply create more noise and potentially make matters more difficult.

If his employer’s details are known, absolutely give them to ICACU, the police, your solicitor or the US authorities because they may be useful in helping to establish where he is living or working.

But that is very different from contacting his workplace yourself and asking them to intervene.

Your energy needs to go into the Hague application, preserving your evidence and getting specialist advice. Those are the routes that can actually lead to DD being returned.

Does his employer have a X(Twitter) and Facebook account? I'd post there ASAP stating that you contacted the company directly after their employee illegally abducted your child to move cross border for their employment and that you are waiting for their assistance and coordination with local authorities. Press really matters to multinational corporations and you get a quicker response if they think other people will see it and react negatively. Sorry though, that is horrendous. Your poor DD.

I would contact them again to inform them that one of their employees has removed your DD from your care without permission.

@Merrybandofpirates He's American so he won't need a visa, and his DD is American too through him (dual citizen British-American).

But in America they give a shit about this sort of thing. They will be running around weighing up the odds of legal/bad publicity against a single employee. If my child was taken I would do absolutely everything regardless of the odds!

When he messaged you from the airport, did you call the airlines and tell them that you did not give permission for your child to leave the country and her dad had kidnapped her? And they let her on board anyway?

You need a solicitor/legal team asap to get the necessary court orders to serve in the US.

I would also definitely contact your MP. And yes I would write to the CEO of his company and the head of legal (and in their NY office too) and explain that their employee has abducted a child contrary to the Hague Convention and the only address you have is their headquarters in NYC so you will be using that.

Does he have family in the US? He can't be planning on heading to NYC to work without some child care already in place - most likely to be family or a girlfriend. If you know them or have contact information for them tell them they are in a whole lot of trouble being party to abducting your child.

I would wait to talk to your solicitor (and you need someone who has expertise in international law) but I would also contact someone in US immigration and tell them your husband has lied on his visa declarations when entering the US.

You could cc any email correspondence to Chris Elmore who is the FCDO Minister of State to the Americas. He took position in July 2026 at the change of PM.

They won't be against a hero daddy who rescued his own child from an unstable mother....or whatever his story is.
What is his story?

Right, get yourself a solicitor knows about The Hague Concenton on the International aspects of Child Custody.

This is the get first thing you need to do as the longer your child is I. Yhd states the stronger his case will become gif keeping them there

ignore all other advice.
this is the first thing you need to do.

i will warn you though, America may be a signatory but the are an egregious shirker of their responsibilities under the convention.

im sorry.

His company will be sponsoring his visa. Contact his company and tell them what he has done.

And tell them you will go public if they don’t step in. They are his sponsors and he has kidnapped a child from their country of citizenship.

Why wouldn’t you contact his employer? I cannot imagine a multi-National endorsing an employee absenting a child.

Gosh this is awful, I’ve not really advice but I just wanted to give you a hand hold. I’d be contacting his employer tbh.

You need to speak to a solicitor specialising in family law.

@calishire Yes, I wondered about this after posting. When we applied for our children's passports in the US, BOTH parents needed to be present at the appointment; if one couldn't be there, they had to complete an affidavit giving their consent.