Polovchak v. Meese

Polovchak v. Meese, 774 F.2d 731 (7th Cir. 1985) was a United States federal legal case involving a 12-year-old who did not want to leave the United States and return with his parents to the Ukraine.

Walter Polovchak was living in Chicago, Illinois when his parents decided to return to what was then a Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. He objected, prompting the case. Polovchak turned 18 before a final decision was rendered, and he was allowed to remain in the United States.

The ruling holds that parents who are citizens of another country cannot remove their own child from the United States to their native land, over the child's objection, unless the child first is afforded a hearing to determine whether living in another nation is in the child's interests.

The case came back into the news during the Elián González custody battle.

External links

• 774 F.2d 731, Anna POLOVCHAK and Michael Polovchak, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Edwin MEESE, III, United States Attorney General, and Michael Landon, District Director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Defendants-Appellants, Walter Polovchak, Intervening-Appellant. Nos. 85-2297, 85-2305. United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. Argued Sept. 9, 1985. Decided Sept. 10, 1985. Opinion Oct. 9, 1985.