Case Update (9 July 2026): Sanchez Lozano v. Herrera Perez; no clear error in finding of grave risk by district court

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of a petition seeking a child’s return to Mexico under the Hague Abduction Convention. The district court denied the petition, believing that the child would be exposed to a grave risk of harm if returned and that the child was now settled in Texas. The Fifth Circuit concluded that it must affirm the district court’s finding on grave risk, so it did not address the child’s settlement in Texas. The Court of Appeals reviewed the district court’s findings for clear error. “A factual finding is not clearly erroneous as long as it is plausible in the light of the record as a whole.” “… [A] finding will be clearly erroneous only ‘when[,] although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.’” At a 2-day trial, the Respondent testified that she believed the Father to be a cocaine-addict and to be involved in drug cartels in Mexico, specifically in Durango. The court believed the Petitioner’s brother had disappeared for 12 years because he “had been running around with a woman that was married and that woman was married to a narco.” The Court of Appeals noted that, at trial, the Petitioner “admitted, and as the district court found, [Petitioner] had used cocaine for eighteen years - indeed, he did so ‘as recently as eight days before’ the district-court hearing - and ‘regularly acquire[d] it to satisfy his addiction.’”

On this basis, there was no clear error in the district court’s findings that returning the child to Mexico would expose the child to a grave risk of harm. The district court’s denial of the petition for return is affirmed.