Bangkok Sole Parental Rights for K2

[kuhio 1]

My Thai Fiancée and I are currently in the K1/K2 visa process for her and her 3 year old daughter. We submitted our petition to the CSC in August and are currently waiting the 5 months for NOA2. Her 3 year old was born out of wedlock and the father left before the baby was born. Her relationship with the father ended when she was attacked with a knife by the guy when she was 7 months pregnant. She has not heard from or seen the father of the child since. Under Thai law my fiancée has sole parental rights of the child. We procured a document from her local Amphur which states this fact. The document was necessary in order to get the child a passport which we did. We also were told by my lawyer that we need this document for the K2 visa. The lawyer also said that the Bangkok embassy used to accept the document procured at the Amphur but more recently have decided that they also need either the father to physically come into the US Embassy and sign something which states that he has no problem with the child immigrating to the US, or we need a court order which states that my fiancée has sole parental rights.

However, the Bangkok Embassy Website says the following in their packet 4 instruction document:

In case of child born out of wedlock to the traveling mother, the mother’s official

verification proof of custody (different form from the marital status certificate) verifying

that the child was born from an unregistered marriage and the child’s father has not

legitimated the child should be submitted. The sample custody certificate can be

downloaded from http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/immigrant_visas/custody_cert.html.

I have been advised by my lawyer that it is preferable to get the father to sign rather than get a court order although my lawyers have also admitted that they don't know off hand the details of what is required to get a court order. (They are US IMMI attorneys not Thai family law attorneys)

With this advice we have proceeded to attempt to contact the father of the child, however, we have no idea where he is located or what his disposition would be regarding this. The assumption is that for some money he will just sign, as by law he has no parental rights anyway and not signing would be just turning down free money. The problem is that we have not been able to locate the father. All we have to go off of is his family address which is 3 years old. He may or may not live there. The family may or may not still live there. My lawyer has been basically sending a letter to the address hoping the guy miraculously reads it and decides to dial up my lawyers office. To date no one has responded to the letters. Growing frustrated with this sort of minimal effort that is going into locating the guy (granted my lawyer is not a PI and told me from day 1 they would try to contact the guy but stop short of PI type work), I talked with my lawyer last night and he suggested that we wait a while longer to see if the guy responds and then the next step would be to pursue a court order.

I am considering spending considerable money in order to hire a PI type person to track this guy down at this point because if fear if we do not find him in short order getting the court order will significantly effect the time it takes to get our visas.

My questions are the following:

1) Does anyone have experience with getting a K2 visa at Bangkok that can settle the discrepancy between what my lawyer says and what the Embassy Website says?

2) Does anyone have any experience going through the Thai Family court in order to get a court order which just reiterates what the Amphur states?

Thanks!

[Ning 619]

My Thai Fiancée and I are currently in the K1/K2 visa process for her and her 3 year old daughter. We submitted our petition to the CSC in August and are currently waiting the 5 months for NOA2. Her 3 year old was born out of wedlock and the father left before the baby was born. Her relationship with the father ended when she was attacked with a knife by the guy when she was 7 months pregnant. She has not heard from or seen the father of the child since. Under Thai law my fiancée has sole parental rights of the child. We procured a document from her local Amphur which states this fact. The document was necessary in order to get the child a passport which we did. We also were told by my lawyer that we need this document for the K2 visa. The lawyer also said that the Bangkok embassy used to accept the document procured at the Amphur but more recently have decided that they also need either the father to physically come into the US Embassy and sign something which states that he has no problem with the child immigrating to the US, or we need a court order which states that my fiancée has sole parental rights.

However, the Bangkok Embassy Website says the following in their packet 4 instruction document:

I have been advised by my lawyer that it is preferable to get the father to sign rather than get a court order although my lawyers have also admitted that they don't know off hand the details of what is required to get a court order. (They are US IMMI attorneys not Thai family law attorneys)

With this advice we have proceeded to attempt to contact the father of the child, however, we have no idea where he is located or what his disposition would be regarding this. The assumption is that for some money he will just sign, as by law he has no parental rights anyway and not signing would be just turning down free money. The problem is that we have not been able to locate the father. All we have to go off of is his family address which is 3 years old. He may or may not live there. The family may or may not still live there. My lawyer has been basically sending a letter to the address hoping the guy miraculously reads it and decides to dial up my lawyers office. To date no one has responded to the letters. Growing frustrated with this sort of minimal effort that is going into locating the guy (granted my lawyer is not a PI and told me from day 1 they would try to contact the guy but stop short of PI type work), I talked with my lawyer last night and he suggested that we wait a while longer to see if the guy responds and then the next step would be to pursue a court order.

I am considering spending considerable money in order to hire a PI type person to track this guy down at this point because if fear if we do not find him in short order getting the court order will significantly effect the time it takes to get our visas.

My questions are the following:

1) Does anyone have experience with getting a K2 visa at Bangkok that can settle the discrepancy between what my lawyer says and what the Embassy Website says?

2) Does anyone have any experience going through the Thai Family court in order to get a court order which just reiterates what the Amphur states?

Thanks!

You have done an outstanding job at gathering the correct information.

In the last 4 months a friend went thru this very situation. She did not have the correct information & did not understand the actual requirements on the embassy. The journey turned into a 2 month nightmare. In the end she learned to comply with the policy & a visa was issued for her daughter. The following is what we did to get what was required.

Your finance should be able to track down the father. She can begin by going to the village where he last lived. There she can check with his family & people in the village or the local amphur. There is almost always a way to locate these people. The local police can be asked to look for him as well.

The embassy would not accept the letter from the amphur alone. They insisted on a document from the father that they supplied. When my friend finally got that signed they wouldnt accept it because the father had only signed it. They said he had to write it out in Thai & then sign it.

Luckly I had suggested to her that she have the father come to BKK & wait outside the embassy just in case. When the officer rejected the letter she asked if he could come in. They questioned him & approved the visa.

Makes sure anything he signs is in English & Thai. He needs to be found to get that done & part of the deal needs to be that he will come to BKK as insurance.

My friend paid about 150 dollars to get the father to do what he did.

If you need help figuering out how to find him send me a P M. I can help your fiance understand what should be done.

[kuhio 1]

Thanks Ning for the reply and the info regarding your experience.

I have sort of left this thread alone for the past month or so because there was a significant development which made me think our troubles were most likely over regarding this issue. As with anything with this visa process, I could not have been more wrong on that count.

Turns out we were somewhat miraculously able to locate the "father". My lawyer sent a second letter stating that we would like to talk with him regarding his signature on the matter to another address my lawyer dug up. Turns out the address was an aunt of the "father" and she actually picked up the phone and called my lawyer. Turns out the guy is in jail. Big surprise. At the time this seemed like good news. We knew where he was, the family of the guy seemed cooperative and my lawyer was going to ask the Embassy what they need in this case. A few weeks later my lawyer said that he talked with the Embassy and they said that they still need the signature of the father (mind you Thai law clearly states that my Fiancee has every right to take the child out of the country to live without a signature), but since he is in jail we also need the warden of the jail to witness the signature because the "father" cannot go to the government office where this usually would be done because he is incarcerated. Finally, we would also need a letter from the warden stating that the father was indeed in jail. Turns out that only a family member of the inmate can request this.

Awesome, so basically the Embassy is saying that they would like to throw me to the wolves for a gigantic shakedown.

Ok, so whatever, a plan was hatched. My lawyers office was in contact with the family of the father and they indicated that they would go to the jail on a particular day with a Thai lawyer from my lawyers firm, compensation included of course. They would meet in this upcountry town at the jail and the warden was contacted to attend (for additional compensation of course), plus more for the "fathers" prison fund, and the whole thing was supposed to happen Monday after Christmas weekend. Total cost for just this little trip upcountry came out to about $1000.

So Christmas Eve my Fiancee gets a call from the Thai lawyer who is supposed to go on this trip to get the signature a few days later. She says that she just received a call from the family of the father and they talked with him and he is saying that unless my Fiancee and her 3 year old daughter also go up to the prison in person he would not sign. It's about 20 hours 1 way from where my Fiancee lives to this town with the prison. Also, my Fiancee feels it is not really that safe for her and especially her three year old to go there. Since it was Christmas Eve, my American attorneys from the same office that the Thai attorney were not available to talk to. So given that my fiancee could not really pack up everything and go on a 20 hour one way journey with her 3 year old in tow I decided to just have the lawyer tell the family that it would not be possible for my fiancee to be there on Monday and this cancelled the trip.

Obviously not happy with the situation, I waited until my lawyers were back at work and they confirmed that the father made this demand. Frankly, we are not all that surprised. My Fiancee feels that the guy will just do anything possible to make things as difficult as possible for her. Were she to go, and he still chose not sign, I would be out most of the $1000 regardless. So after talking with my lawyer about the situation we agreed that we need to find out what it takes to get a court order before we can make a decision to comply with the fathers demands or not. The Embassy said that they need the signature or a court order. Problem is my attorneys don't know anything about this court order that the Embassy is talking about. They say that they are contacting someone they know who does family law in Thailand but that person is out until after the new year. I guess my lawyers have never had a situation like this were the guy does not just take the money and sign.

Problem is, no one else seems to know what a court order for a case like mine is either. I called two family lawyers in Thailand independently while I wait for my lawyers to get a hold of the one they know. Both that I talked to said the same thing. Namely, there is no such thing as a court order in our case because Thai law could not be more clear that my fiancee has every right to decide on her own where in the world she would like to take her daughter. She has sole parental rights because they were not married at the time of the child's birth and the father did not register for parental rights with the government in the time after the child was born. (never mind that he has never met his daughter and wouldn't know her name or even that she was a she) There is not a dispute. The family law attorneys both said that you cannot get a judge to rule on a case if there is no dispute. They both suggested that I have a Thai family lawyer write up a notarized affidavit which states what the law is here to in their words, "Educate the Embassy" lol A US visa attorney who works in the same firm one of the family lawyers that I talked to said that we would just need the father to sign. If he does not sign, then that is the ball game. No visa.

So as it stands right now we are waiting to hear back from our attorneys next week to see what his verdict on what exactly a court order would look like in the case that we clearly by Thai law don't need a court order, how long such a thing would take to get, how much it would cost, etc. After we have that info we can make an informed decision about whether or not my Fiancee has to deliver her daughter, hat in hand, to a convicted criminal who had previously assaulted her with a knife while she was pregnant and has not been heard from since.

Obviously if the "court process" is absurdly long or expensive, or if it does not exist, we will have to go up to the prison and hope for the best.

If anyone has any information or comment on anything that could help us with this I would sincerely appreciate it. I just don't understand how this can possibly be the policy for mothers who already have sole parental rights. It is not like she has any recourse under Thai law should he decide just not to sign. She cannot go after him for support. It seems like this just creates a situation where he can demand just about anything he wants and we either comply or give up on the visa.

[Ning 619]

Thanks Ning for the reply and the info regarding your experience.

I have sort of left this thread alone for the past month or so because there was a significant development which made me think our troubles were most likely over regarding this issue. As with anything with this visa process, I could not have been more wrong on that count.

Turns out we were somewhat miraculously able to locate the "father". My lawyer sent a second letter stating that we would like to talk with him regarding his signature on the matter to another address my lawyer dug up. Turns out the address was an aunt of the "father" and she actually picked up the phone and called my lawyer. Turns out the guy is in jail. Big surprise. At the time this seemed like good news. We knew where he was, the family of the guy seemed cooperative and my lawyer was going to ask the Embassy what they need in this case. A few weeks later my lawyer said that he talked with the Embassy and they said that they still need the signature of the father (mind you Thai law clearly states that my Fiancee has every right to take the child out of the country to live without a signature), but since he is in jail we also need the warden of the jail to witness the signature because the "father" cannot go to the government office where this usually would be done because he is incarcerated. Finally, we would also need a letter from the warden stating that the father was indeed in jail. Turns out that only a family member of the inmate can request this.

Awesome, so basically the Embassy is saying that they would like to throw me to the wolves for a gigantic shakedown.

Ok, so whatever, a plan was hatched. My lawyers office was in contact with the family of the father and they indicated that they would go to the jail on a particular day with a Thai lawyer from my lawyers firm, compensation included of course. They would meet in this upcountry town at the jail and the warden was contacted to attend (for additional compensation of course), plus more for the "fathers" prison fund, and the whole thing was supposed to happen Monday after Christmas weekend. Total cost for just this little trip upcountry came out to about $1000.

So Christmas Eve my Fiancee gets a call from the Thai lawyer who is supposed to go on this trip to get the signature a few days later. She says that she just received a call from the family of the father and they talked with him and he is saying that unless my Fiancee and her 3 year old daughter also go up to the prison in person he would not sign. It's about 20 hours 1 way from where my Fiancee lives to this town with the prison. Also, my Fiancee feels it is not really that safe for her and especially her three year old to go there. Since it was Christmas Eve, my American attorneys from the same office that the Thai attorney were not available to talk to. So given that my fiancee could not really pack up everything and go on a 20 hour one way journey with her 3 year old in tow I decided to just have the lawyer tell the family that it would not be possible for my fiancee to be there on Monday and this cancelled the trip.

Obviously not happy with the situation, I waited until my lawyers were back at work and they confirmed that the father made this demand. Frankly, we are not all that surprised. My Fiancee feels that the guy will just do anything possible to make things as difficult as possible for her. Were she to go, and he still chose not sign, I would be out most of the $1000 regardless. So after talking with my lawyer about the situation we agreed that we need to find out what it takes to get a court order before we can make a decision to comply with the fathers demands or not. The Embassy said that they need the signature or a court order. Problem is my attorneys don't know anything about this court order that the Embassy is talking about. They say that they are contacting someone they know who does family law in Thailand but that person is out until after the new year. I guess my lawyers have never had a situation like this were the guy does not just take the money and sign.

Problem is, no one else seems to know what a court order for a case like mine is either. I called two family lawyers in Thailand independently while I wait for my lawyers to get a hold of the one they know. Both that I talked to said the same thing. Namely, there is no such thing as a court order in our case because Thai law could not be more clear that my fiancee has every right to decide on her own where in the world she would like to take her daughter. She has sole parental rights because they were not married at the time of the child's birth and the father did not register for parental rights with the government in the time after the child was born. (never mind that he has never met his daughter and wouldn't know her name or even that she was a she) There is not a dispute. The family law attorneys both said that you cannot get a judge to rule on a case if there is no dispute. They both suggested that I have a Thai family lawyer write up a notarized affidavit which states what the law is here to in their words, "Educate the Embassy" lol A US visa attorney who works in the same firm one of the family lawyers that I talked to said that we would just need the father to sign. If he does not sign, then that is the ball game. No visa.

So as it stands right now we are waiting to hear back from our attorneys next week to see what his verdict on what exactly a court order would look like in the case that we clearly by Thai law don't need a court order, how long such a thing would take to get, how much it would cost, etc. After we have that info we can make an informed decision about whether or not my Fiancee has to deliver her daughter, hat in hand, to a convicted criminal who had previously assaulted her with a knife while she was pregnant and has not been heard from since.

Obviously if the "court process" is absurdly long or expensive, or if it does not exist, we will have to go up to the prison and hope for the best.

If anyone has any information or comment on anything that could help us with this I would sincerely appreciate it. I just don't understand how this can possibly be the policy for mothers who already have sole parental rights. It is not like she has any recourse under Thai law should he decide just not to sign. She cannot go after him for support. It seems like this just creates a situation where he can demand just about anything he wants and we either comply or give up on the visa.

These are difficult situations for anyone to understand. Especially Americans or others that live in countries ruled by laws. Thailand has laws but they are applied in a random manner that often doesnt make sense.

It was no miracle that the father was located. It isnt that hard to do when you know how. Thailand isnt the mystery it seems to be. What occured after the family was located isnt anything new or different either. Thais are experts at extorsion. That includes your lawyers. They know exactly how this game is played. Its a way of life there.

Isnt it strange that no one seems to know about these court orders? One lawyer needs to call another. Nothing new but why does it take forever to get that done? Because they dont want to do it. There is also no mystery in getting a court order. Having it enforced is another thing. The court will end up including the father anyway & that will be difficult & take forever.

This is a deadly serious game. You wont win by fighting the embassy. They are well aware of Thai law. They know exactly what may be required to get the fathers signature & simply dont care what anyone has to do to get it. No one that I know has escaped the fathers signature. I explained what happened in brief to a friend.

In Thailand it is normal to have the family make the demands & then back out. This generates more money as you know. The only way to get what you want is to comply. If you want the dollar amount to change prepare for a long difficult journey. If you want the kid set the price thru the family. They will pressure the idiot in jail for you. He will get some but have to share with them. He wont like that but let him deal with them. Tell them to come to the jail. Make them invest some money to get what they want. You have to get junk yard dog mean to get this done.

As far as the fear factor of meeting with him you will have to accept the idea that she & the child will be safe. He isnt going to attack anyone. The child is a tool to him. He wants to get paid; his family wants to get paid. This is about money & nothing more. Decide how much you will pay. Present them with less than that. Prepare for a Thai negotiation. Allow him to save face & " win". You are dealing with a child in a mans body. Someone needs to be in the position of a middle man for your side. They speak for you. His family speaks for him. Thats Thai style. This may not get done in one visit to the jail if your side isnt fully prepared. Time is on the fathers side. Use the families needs to get what you want.

Your last sentence is correct.

Edited December 30, 2010 by Ning