{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=364831", "<span class=\"kicker\">Asbury Park Press page one</span>Sean and David Goldman abduction bill could be approved this week", "2013-12-18", "2013", "2013-12", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "By Susanne Cervenka, Asbury Park Press staff --  \r\n\u00a0  \r\n\u00a0It could be another Christmas surprise for David Goldman, the former Tinton Falls man whose son, Sean, was returned to him on Christmas Eve four years ago.\r\nThis time, the gift would be the passage of a law named for Goldman and his son that would help other families whose children have been kidnapped to foreign countries.\r\nAfter three years of negotiations, the \u201cSean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act\u201d is headed to the U.S. Senate, where it could be approved as soon as this week, said Rep. Chris Smith, who, along with Goldman, appeared at an editorial board meeting at the Asbury Park Press.\r\nSmith, R-N.J., said the Senate could take up the bill through unanimous consent, a procedure that would expedite the legislation\u2019s path to President Barack Obama\u2019s desk.\r\nSmith said he has not heard yet if Obama would sign the bill, but Goldman said Obama was supportive of his mission when he was a senator and intervened soon after becoming president.\r\nThe legislation would set up a series of sanctions against countries that persistently fail to follow either the Hague Abduction Conventions, a 1980 international treaty that bars parents from fleeing to other countries until custody is decided, or similar agreements the United States would make with countries that haven\u2019t signed on to that treaty.\r\nSean Goldman, now 13, is the only U.S. child so far to be returned under the Hague treaty, which is signed by more than 80 countries, but rarely is enforced.\r\nChildren who have come home do so most often because of an agreement reached between both parents, not because of judicial orders by foreign courts, Goldman said.\r\nThe sanctions, which range from the president making a private appeal to suspending or revoking economic aide, are key to the legislation, which Smith said amps up the Hague treaty by putting political pressure on countries that harbor parents. The law also would require the U.S. Department of State, with the parents\u2019 permission, to notify federal lawmakers, who represent left-behind parents, of the abduction so they can put pressure on their diplomatic counterparts.\r\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t have a penalty phase, enforcing a global human rights standard becomes meaningless,\u201d Smith said. \u201cCountries do not sharpen their response and become responsive unless they know there is a potential penalty phase.\u201d\r\n Sean is in a 'safe place' \r\nThe bill passed the House with a 398-0 vote, a seemingly impossible feat in the increasingly cantankerous Congress.\r\nGoldman, however, sees nothing partisan in bringing American children home to settle custody disputes.\r\nGoldman\u2019s wife, Bruna Bianchi, took Sean, then 4, from New Jersey to Brazil on what Goldman thought was a two-week trip to visit family. Bianchi remarried, then died in childbirth, which set off the high-profile international fight to return Sean home.\r\nGoldman said cases like his, where the children have been living in the United States before one parent takes them abroad, are often wrongly characterized as international custody cases instead of abduction cases.\r\nBut once abroad, the country harboring the parent abductor treat the case as a straight custodial case, where laws often aren\u2019t the same as the United States.\r\nGoldman, 47, incurred upwards of $700,000 in debt for legal bills in both countries, plane tickets, extended hotel stays and translation costs in the fight to bring his son home from Brazil.\r\nThis legislation would help reduce the financial damage families face along with emotional turmoil the separation case inflict by speeding up the children\u2019s return to the United States, he said.\r\n\u201cThe quicker the remedy, the less the costs,\u201d said Goldman, who established the Bring Sean Home Foundation to help other families. He has since moved from his Tinton Falls home, but has not said where he is living now. Goldman has remarried.\r\nSean has visited with his Brazilian grandmother about three or four times since, at least twice in the past year, he said. Those visits occurred here with Sean\u2019s therapist.\r\nThe focus now has been to give Sean as normal of a childhood as possible, Goldman said.\r\nGoldman said he keeps a watchful eye on Sean as any parent would, but no longer fears when his son will be home.\r\nOriginally published at:\r\nhttp://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013312160061", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=364831"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1889399029314518, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}