Moving to the USA

[doingmybest2]

I am a single mum of a 7 year old boy. My relationship with his father was never good. He was violent towards me and our relationship ended when my son was 2 years old. My ex-partner ended up in prison for assault and harrassment against me. Since his release, I have done everything in my power to ensure that the problems we had did not impact on his relationship with his son. I have allowed him as much contact as he has wanted and even entered into a voluntary parental responsibility agreement with him. (we were never married). He often lets our son down, fails to turn up to collect him at short notice, takes him to stay with his girlfriend where my son has to sleep in the lounge downstairs on his own. My son says he hates it there and gets upset about it. My ex has his own place but still continues to take him to his girlfriend's when he has him overnight.
My mum lives in America. She has just been awarded full citizenship and I now have the opportunity to move there to live. I could provide my son with a far better quality of life there than I can here. I have thought about moving there a lot over the years and have now decided it is a move I really want to make (for both me and my son). My brother and my father still live in England. I would be returning at least once a year to visit and I would be prepared to allow my ex to come and stay with us at our new house if he wanted to. I would do my utmost to maintain the relationsip between my son and his father by phone, letter, sending photos, emails, etc. Where do I stand legally? Will I be allowed to take my son to live in the USA? Has anyone else been through anything similar?

Doingmybest2 - I am not a legaleagle, but the one thing that worried me was

I " entered into a voluntary parental responsibility agreement with him"

Someone who knows more will come along soon I'm sure, but in the mean time I wish you luck, and I hope everything goes how you need it to go.

I don't know the answer but I really hope you can make a new life for yourselves.

You'd be going through the Family-based visa process. This could take a long time to process - I'm not sure of the time frame, but it would not suprise me if it were several years.

In order to get your visa, your mother would have to file a I-130 petition for you and your son and you would wait for this to be processed (this is the long wait). Once it is approved, you'd apply for a visa from London. At the visa interview, you show your various documents, including anything related to the custody arrangements for your son.

I've just looked up the processing times - for the 1st Family preference category (unmarried sons and daughters over 21), there are 23400 visas available per year, and they are adjudicating petitions filed in Oct '01.

doingmybest2 if your ex has parential responsibility for your son he can stop you taking him out of the country, is this PR verbal or did you have something written down, it could make all the difference, I think you should go and make a new life for yourself, good luck

Thanks for all your support and advice. My son and I have been back for 2 weeks following a 4 week holiday. He has made no effort to get in touch or to see his son since we got back even though he kicked up a right fuss before we went saying 4 weeks was too long. Sometimes he goe 6 weeks with no contact. I think it is all about control with him rather than about being a good parent. I'm hoping the Court will take all of this into consideration when I make my application.

does sound very much like control, just make sure you take note of everything that goes on, like conversations, text messages etc that you can show the courts, good luck.