David and Sean Goldman celebrate Sean’s graduation from Holmdel High School
This time of year thousands of New Jersey families, millions throughout the nation, are celebrating a major milestone in the lives of their teen aged children as they graduate from high school.
Twice this week, Sean Goldman’s graduation from Holmdel High School was described to me as a miracle.
It’s not that Sean overcame a disability or extreme hardship–miracles that should be celebrated. Sean was abducted by his mother, Bruna Bianchi, 14 years ago and taken to Brazil. Bianchi took Sean on what she said was a two week vacation to visit her family in Brazil, but once there, she divorced Sean’s father, David Goldman, and kept the four year old boy from his father. A Brazilian Court granted Bianchi a divorce. A New Jersey Court granted David custody of his son.
When Bianchi died during childbirth four years later, the international child custody case should have been over, under the terms of the Hague Convention which grants custody to a surviving biological parent. But Sean’s maternal grandparents and step-father used their wealth and political influence to thwart—temporarily as it turned out–David’s unrelenting commitment to raise his son.
Congressman Chris Smith listens to Patricia Apy, a Red Bank attorney, testify about the need for the State Department to step up the enforcement of the Goldman Act
While most of Washington and the media was focused on why you see the ads you see on facebook yesterday, Congressman Chris Smith and his colleagues on the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights were focused on reuniting kidnapped children with their American parents.
Smith, as chairman of the committee, called on the Trump administration to step up where the Obama administration failed by imposing sanctions on countries that are not enforcing court orders, including from their own courts, for families suffering from international parental child abduction. Read the rest of this entry »
Congressman Chris Smith, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, will preside over a hearing this afternoon to provide an update on how well the Goldman Act is being enforced. The panel will examine inconsistencies in previous annual reports on international child abduction, which are required by the Goldman Act for the State Department to submit to Congress each year by April 30. Read the rest of this entry »
In Dec 2013, left-behind parents, Captain Paul Toland whose daughter was kidnapped in Japan; Bindu Philips of Plainsboro, N.J., whose two sons were abducted to India, and David Goldman whose son was abducted to Brazil and returned after a five year ordeal, joined Rep. Chris Smith in calling for passage of legislation, dubbed the Goldman Act (HR 3212) to help families who have been victimized by international abductions
It is rare for most congressmen to get one of there bills signed into law. Frank Pallone, for example, has only had 6 bills, two naming post offices, become law in his entire 26 year career in congress.
Congressman Chris Smith is #4 of all members of the 435 member House of Representatives in getting their bills through both houses and signed by the president. On Friday, two more of Smith’s bills became the law of the land. Families and children are better off because of Smith’s new laws.
Between ordering airstrikes in Iraq and flying off to vacation in Martha’s Vineyard on Friday, President Obama signed two separate bills sponsored by Smith. One to help prevent international child abduction and return American children now held overseas, and the other targeting $1.3 billion in federal funds to assist families touched by autism.