In a divorce case involving children, the final divorce decree will set out in detail the custodial rights of each parent. This includes who has primary physical and/or legal custody, when the child will physically be with each parent (visitation), and which parent has final decision making authority. The divorce decree will also detail other guidelines the parents must follow post-divorce, such as that a parent must notify the other if they are moving out of town and that a parent cannot take the children out of the country without the consent of the other parent.
A violation of this last guideline recently resulted in a United Airlines flight returning back to Washington Dulles International Airport at the request of the FBI. Alleged international parent kidnapping diverts flight, by Katia Hetter, cnn.com, September 5, 2014. In that case, the mother was attempting to fly to Beijing with her child. Once the flight landed back at Dulles, federal law enforcement officers met the plane and took a mother into custody "on suspicion of committing an international parent kidnapping." Apparently, the mother and father had a recent custody agreement, which prohibited either party from travelling outside the United States with the child "without express written and notarized consent of the other party, provided in advance of the trip." In an interview with law enforcement, the mother admitted violating this portion of the custody agreement.
Not only is this mother in contempt for violating a provision of her custody agreement, it is a federal crime for parents "to remove or attempt to remove a child from the United States, or retain a child outside the United States with intent to obstruct another parent's custodial rights." 18 U.S.C. ยง 1204. At this point, the mother's intent is not known, but it can probably be assumed that she was not going to take the child for a quick weekend to Beijing. Thus, now she will be the defendant in multiple court actions and has a serious chance of losing custody of her child.