Opinion ID: 2748473
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Country of Habitual Residence

Text: Under the Convention, a petitioner seeking to prove wrongful removal must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that immediately prior to the removal: (1) the child's habitual residence was the place to which the child's return is being sought, (2) the petitioner had custody rights over the child, and (3) the petitioner was exercising his or her custody rights. Sánchez-Londoño v. González, 752 F.3d 533, 540 (1st Cir. 2014) (citing Darín, 746 F.3d at 9). Importantly, pursuant to the Convention, the court-ordered return of wrongfully removed or retained children to their country of habitual residence is not a final determination of custody rights. Neergaard-Colón, 752 F.3d at 530. Rather, such an order of return simply ensures that custodial decisions will be made by the courts of the children's country of habitual residence. Id. (citing Abbott, 560 U.S. at 9). The determination of a child's country of habitual residence is critical, because '[i]f the state in which a child is -9- retained was also the child's place of habitual residence immediately prior to retention, that retention is not wrongful under the Hague Convention.' Sánchez-Londoño, 752 F.3d at 540 (quoting Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 530). Although the Convention itself does not define the term habitual residence, our inquiry into this question 'begins with the parents' shared intent or settled purpose regarding their child's residence.' Id. (quoting Nicolson v. Pappalardo, 605 F.3d 100, 103-04 (1st Cir. 2010)). As a secondary factor, 'evidence of a child's acclimatization to his or her place of residence may also be relevant.' Id. (quoting Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 530); see also Darín, 746 F.3d at 11-13. When reviewing a district court's findings as to habitual residence, we defer to the court's findings of intent absent clear error, but we review the ultimate determination of habitual residence -- a mixed question of fact and law -- de novo. Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 530.
As is the case here, where the children in question are very young, we focus on the shared intent or settled purpose of the parents, rather than the children, because young children lack[] both the material and psychological means to decide where [they] will reside. Darín, 746 F.3d at 11; see also Sánchez-Londoño, 752 F.3d at 540 (stating that when children are very young, it is -10- generally the parents who are entitled to determine the child's place of habitual residence); Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 531. We look specifically to the latest moment of the parents' shared intent, as the wishes of one parent alone are not sufficient to change a child's habitual residence. Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 531 (citing Darín, 746 F.3d at 11). In the absence of clear error in the district court's subsidiary findings of fact, we defer to its finding of intent: its plausible interpretation of the facts cannot be rejected just because the record might sustain a conflicting interpretation. Darín, 746 F.3d at 8. In a situation like this, in which the parties have lived in two or more countries, the district court is required to distinguish 'between the abandonment of a prior habitual residence and the acquisition of a new one.' Sánchez-Londoño, 752 F.3d at 540 (quoting Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 531). A person cannot acquire a new habitual residence without forming a settled intention to abandon the one left behind. Otherwise, one is not habitually residing; one is away for a temporary absence of long or short duration. Darín, 746 F.3d at 11 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Here, although certain members of the family lived in various countries over the years -- including Haiti, St. Maarten, France, Canada, and the United States -- only two countries are -11- legitimate candidates for consideration as the country of the children's habitual residence pursuant to the parents' latest shared intent or settled purpose prior to removal: Haiti and Canada. Indeed, the mother has not put forth any other alternative country of habitual residence. Rather, the crux of her argument on this issue is that the parents never intended to move permanently from Haiti to Canada. In support of this position, the mother argues that the father only left Haiti after a catastrophic earthquake forced him to seek refugee status in Canada. She maintains that she was coerced to move to Canada, and that she never applied for asylum or status as a permanent resident there. Specifically, the mother alleges that the father forced her to leave Boston and bring R.M. to join him and M.M. in Canada by means of threats. She alleges that he said that if she did not come to Canada, he would buy rat poison and use it to first kill M.M., and then himself. If true, such allegations certainly would undermine the father's argument that both parents shared an intent for the children to reside in Canada. However, the father denies the mother's claims, and the district court did not affirmatively credit her allegations. The court found that although the mother only reluctantly took R.M. to Canada in March 2010, she then proceeded to live there with the father and his children for approximately ten months. In January -12- 2011, the mother, R.M., and M.M. moved out, first staying with relatives but then moving to a separate apartment in Montréal. In February or March 2012, the mother agreed to allow the father and his other children to move into her apartment. The court further found that [i]t is clear that the children lived with their mother in an apartment in Montreal for about two years prior to the events that gave rise to the present petition. Indeed, the court found relevant the undisputed fact that even after the mother stopped living with the father, she established her own household with the children in Montreal. Thus, the court found that the mother's actions show that she chose to remain in Canada of her own volition, and the fact that she subsequently had a change of heart and decided that the children would be better off living elsewhere is of no moment, as any such intent was not a shared one with [the father]. For those reasons, the district court concluded that although the parents originally lacked a shared intent for the children to live in Canada when the mother first arrived in March 2010, the parties later formed such an intent at some point during the intervening three-and-a-half years prior to the children's removal and retention in September 2013. The court found that for at least two years during this period, and possibly longer, both parents were content to have the children live in Canada. -13- On the record before us, we cannot say that these findings are clearly erroneous. Although the mother offers various reasons for her decisions to travel and stay in Canada, including her uncertain immigration status, she does not dispute that she continued to live in Canada -- at times together with the father, and at times separately -- for three-and-a-half years. She asserts that her action to remain in Canada cannot be viewed as a choice, arguing that she remained in Canada due to [the father's] extensive control and coercion in the form of verbal and sexual abuse. However, the mother also admits that she moved out of the father's household and remained in Canada for a period of one year. Although she argues that during this period she had nowhere to go and could not return to the United States due to poverty and lack of legal immigration status, she fails to explain how circumstances changed such that she was later able to return to the United States in September 2013 but was unable to do so before that time. On these facts, the district court concluded that the mother's actions show that even when she was not under [the father's] control or influence, she chose to remain in Canada. We find no clear error in this factual finding. Nonetheless, the mother maintains that the parties did not intend to abandon Haiti. See Darín, 746 F.3d at 11. We find this argument unconvincing. Nothing in the parents' actions suggests that they intended to return to Haiti. The mother left -14- Haiti in September 2009, and the father left Haiti in February 2010. The mother has not lived in Haiti for five years, and the father has not lived in Haiti for well over four years. Moreover, neither child was born in Haiti -- M.M. was born in France, and R.M. was born in the United States. There is no evidence of any attempt or future plan by the parents to return to Haiti to raise the children there. In fact, the mother testified at trial that after giving birth to R.M. in Massachusetts, she wanted the father and M.M. to join her in the United States, but he would not. Thus, the evidence shows no shared intent by the parents to return to Haiti or to raise their children in the United States, leaving Canada as the country in which the parents last had a shared intent for their children to reside. See Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 531-32. Accordingly, we cannot conclude that the district court clearly erred in determining that the parents shared an intent to abandon Haiti in favor of Canada. Finding no clear error in the district court's findings of the subsidiary facts, we defer to its finding of intent. See Sánchez-Londoño, 752 F.3d at 542 (citing Darín, 746 F.3d at 8). We thus uphold the district court's factual finding that the parents last shared an intent for their children to habitually reside in Canada. See id. at 540-42. -15-
Having upheld the district court's factual finding that the parents intended to abandon Haiti and establish Canada as the children's country of habitual residence, we now consider whether the children were nonetheless acclimatized to a country other than Canada. [F]actors evidencing a child's acclimatization to a given place -- like a change in geography combined with the passage of an appreciable period of time -- may influence our habitual-residence analysis. Id. at 542. [I]n certain circumstances, 'a child can lose its habitual attachment to a place even without a parent's consent . . . if the objective facts point unequivocally to a person's ordinary or habitual residence being in a particular place . . . .' Neergaard–Colón, 752 F.3d at 532 (quoting Darín, 746 F.3d at 11–12). However, courts should be slow to infer that an established country of habitual residence has been abandoned, when the parents have not demonstrated a shared intent to do so. Id. (quoting Darín, 746 F.3d at 13). Relatedly, evidence of acclimatization is generally insufficient to establish a child's habitual residence in a new country when contrary parental intent exists. Id. at 12 (quoting Darín, 746 F.3d at 12). Here, the overwhelming weight of the evidence supports the district court's conclusion that [f]or approximately two years, the children lived in a settled, 'acclimatized' way in Canada. The court found that M.M. attended a primary school and -16- R.M. attended a full-time day care program in Canada. While there, [b]oth children visited regularly with relatives, apparently on both their mother's and their father's sides. They regularly attended church and Sunday school, and they developed Québécois accents. The district court further found that [i]t is noteworthy [that] [R.M.] has spent almost her entire life, and [M.M.] about half her life, in Canada, and the evidence presented at trial shows that both [R.M.] and [M.M.] have had sufficient time for acclimatization. The mother has failed to demonstrate that these factual findings are clearly erroneous. Indeed, the record does not support a conclusion that the children were acclimatized to any country other than Canada. Having found no clear error on this issue, we uphold the district court's factual determination that M.M. and R.M. were acclimatized to life in Canada. Given the lack of clear error in the district court's factual findings on the parents' shared intent and on the children's acclimatization, both of these factors support the district court's ultimate determination that Canada was the children's country of habitual residence. See Sánchez-Londoño, 752 F.3d at 542-43. Accordingly, having been provided no cause to disturb the district court's findings on this issue, we uphold the court's determination that Canada was M.M. and R.M.'s country of habitual residence. -17-