Case Update (8 Sept 2026): Dominguez v. Vasquez; grave risk based on abuse and separation of siblings
The children, ages 10 and 6 at the time of the case, were wrongfully removed from their habitual residence of Honduras and brought to Maryland in the United States. The children’s Father petitioned the district court for their return under the Hague Abduction Convention. He demonstrated his prima facie case, but the Respondent Mother argued two separate exceptions - that the children would be exposed to a grave risk of harm if returned, and the children (or at least the eldest) is mature and objects to return. The court appointed a forensic psychologist to evaluate the children and testify. The court also interviewed, in the presence of counsel, the eldest child. After a 3-day evidentiary hearing, the court denied the Petitioner’s request to return the children based on Respondent’s argued exceptions.
As to the Mother’s argument that returning the children would expose them to a grave risk: the eldest child disclosed to her Mother, upon arriving in the United States, that her Father had sexually abused her. The child was placed in therapy, where she made the same disclosures. The forensic psychologist likewise received the same disclosures. Finally, when the court interviewed the child in front of counsel, the child also made these disclosures. This was after a period of time in Honduras where the child fought going on visits with her Father. The child’s counselor, in the USA, concluded that the child suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder that would be exacerbated if returned to Honduras. The forensic psychologist concluded that the child would be exposed to a grave risk of harm because she had “been the victim of sexual abuse and psychological/emotional abuse by Father.” The forensic credited the child’s accounts as being consistent across settings since the family arrived in the USA. The forensic further opined that the child suffered from PTSD with an expectation that the child will suffer psychological harm if returned to Honduras. As for the younger child, he experienced no direct abuse. He “reacted positively to talking about his father”. But, this fealty to his father, in the forensic’s views, meant that the younger child would not disclose any adverse behaviors or be able to protect himself while in his father’s care. Citing that “[n]othing in the Convention requires that a child must first be traumatized by abuse before the [grave risk] exception applies,” the court concluded that the younger child would also be exposed to a grave risk of harm if returned. The court added that the son, if returned, would be returned without his sister, “which itself amounts to a cruel result. Indeed, child victims of sexual and other abuse are not so easily separated, nor should they be.” No one asked the court to consider ameliorative measures, so the court declined to sua sponte do so, and therefore denied the Father’s petition to return the children. The court separately found the elder child to handle “this serious and solemn process with remarkable calm and clarity” and to have expressed an objection, that was not coached, to returning to Honduras.
The petition was denied.
