Florida Divorce * Child Custody * Domestic Violence Law Lawyer | Boca Raton

Dallas, Texas has more than its share of human trafficking in illegal aliens smuggled into this country against their will.

Of the approximately 16,000 victims of fraud, force, coercion and abuse per year, about twenty percent wind up in Texas.

These illegal immigrants are often victims of domestic violence and abuse.

Immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, are often hesitant to speak out or seek help.

And so four women per day are murdered by their abusers.

But help is available in most communities. From shelters. And from nonprofit associations.

Read more in this Dallas Morning News editorial: Abuse of immigrants in focus.

Immigrant woman marries American from Wisconsin.

Due to birth defects, for most of the American’s life, this individual could have been denominated either a male or a female. But the original birth certificate designated this individual a male.

Prior to the marriage, this individual had surgical removal of male genitalia, reportedly solely for health reasons. The individual’s birth certificate was subsequently amended and her gender was re-designated as female.

The month after the marriage, the American went to court to amend the birth certificate to again designate him as male. The American argued that the original amendment was an error.

But the trial court and, later, an appellate court, refused, holding that the American was time-barred from challenging the original amendment of the birth certificate.

The couple’s marriage license was revoked and the marriage annulled, because same sex marriage is not legal in Wisconsin.

As a result, the New Zealand woman was denied a visa to remain in the US.

The American is quite distressed over the woman’s loss of legal status in the US and plans to appeal to the highest court available.

Read more in this Fairfax New Zealand Limited article: Marriage struck down as husband fails to change gender.

Grounds for divorce here in “no fault” Florida are typically euphemized into “irretrievable breakdown” of the marriage. But that’s not so in all states.

In a New York subculture of immigrants from Africa, relationships are breaking or straining over much more graphic grounds: polygamy by the husband. A religious custom of multiple marriages has reportedly been imported with some Islamic African immigrants.

Although illegal and grounds for deportation, polygamy is apparently widely practiced by immigrant African families who often live “under the radar”.

A recent, much publicized building fire in the Bronx suddenly illuminated the polygamous lifestyles of some residents of the building.

Polygamy is associated with a culture of domestic violence and living conditions that may tend to attract the intervention of social services agencies.

Women from these immigrant groups often condemn polygamy. The men, however, reportedly defend or deny it.

Read more in this New York Times article: In Secret, Polygamy Follows Africans to N.Y.

An immigrant who reportedly overstayed her visa was arrested here in Florida - the day before she and the father of her baby were to finalize an agreement on paternity, custody and child support for their baby.

The woman had allegedly been working to support her baby, using someone else’s social security number.

It turns out that the father’s attorney previously represented the immigration agent, who was instrumental in the mother’s arrest, in his own divorce.

And the father reportedly went around threatening the baby’s mother with deportation if she didn’t reconcile with him. In fact, the local police cited him for trespassing at the baby’s grandmother’s home, where he allegedly made the same threats of deportation.

The father is reportedly on probation for drug charges.

The woman’s attorneys believe that the common attorney link between the immigration agent and the baby’s father is more than coincidence, and may bear on the legality of the case against her and, therefore, her defense.

The judge in the case ordered the sheriff’s office to disclose the identity of law enforcement’s informant.

But the sheriff’s office flat out refuses to comply with the court’s order - and makes no bones about it.

Perhaps there is something to the defense’s suggestions that this woman, just one of many local immigrants allegedly improperly using another’s social security number to work, was singled out for unequal treatment under the law because of the child custody and support case, and the father’s attorney’s presumed access to the immigration agent who had reportedly been his client.

Read more in this Treasure Coast Palm article: Indian River County Sheriff’s Office refuses to identify informant.

A California “fill-in” judge allegedly more or less shooed an illegal alien, who was seeking a restraining order against her husband, out of his courtroom - for what he thought was her own good.

Although the judge reportedly wanted only to spare her from being deported, his concern was completely unnecessary.

First, federal law protects immigrants who are victims of domestic violence. Second, turning her over to immigration authorities was outside the province of the court.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the only reason that the woman’s legal status in this country came up on the courtroom record was because the judge delved into it with his questions - even though it was totally irrelevant to her application for an order of protection.

The judge’s misguided concerns over the woman’s right to stay in this country potentially placed her at risk of serious bodily harm.

Incidents like this underscore the importance of interdisciplinary training of judges in areas of law often overlapping with family and domestic violence law.

Read more in this LA Times article: Experts Criticize Judge’s Deportation Threat.

Divorce has some special twists where one of the couple is a US immigrant.

If one spouse sponsors the other one into the US, the sponsoring spouse typically must swear out an Affidavit of Support, Form I-864. The purpose of this form is, essentially, to assure that an immigrant will not become a public charge, but remain a responsibility of the citizen spouse.

Sponsoring spouses rarely give a thought to swearing out this affidavit when they are trying to bring their loved one into the US. Not so after the relationship takes a turn south.

That affidavit doesn’t mean anything if the couple divorces, does it? Wrong.

The government can hold the sponsoring spouse to the Affidavit of Support.

But that’s not all.

The immigrant spouse can also have the courts order the sponsoring spouse to make good on the Affidavit of Support.

This was confirmed in a recent federal court case litigated here in Florida.

Read more in this Immigration Daily article about the enforceability of affidavits of support in divorces from immigrants.