The State Department has announced a new “Visa Restriction Policy” that is intended to “promptly resolve international parental child abduction cases.”

It will restrict U.S. visa issuance to individuals who are responsible for or complicit in “impeding the prompt resolution of international parental child abduction cases, as well as their immediate families.” It expressly addresses “foreign government officials, judges, judicial administrators, law enforcement officials, and others” who “intentionally obstruct the prompt resolution of these cases.”

The policy does not distinguish between cases in which the foreign authorities deny applications for the return of allegedly abducted children for appropriate or inappropriate reasons.

The policy mistakenly assumes that any resolution of a case is a good thing, without regard to the actual merits of the cases. Thus, it does not penalize foreign judges who dismiss cases expeditiously, even if such dismissals violate the principles of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

The new policy also raises a serious question as to whether, in these circumstances, it is appropriate or lawful to sanction foreign judges who resolve international child custody cases in accordance with the laws of their own countries.

The immediate targets of the policy might be countries that are listed as “non-compliant” in the State Department’s Annual Reports on International Child Abduction, which the State Department submits annually to Congress. The countries that are on the current list are Argentina, the Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, India, Jordan, Korea, Peru, Poland, Serbia, and the UAE.