“Gossip Girl” star Kelly Rutherford says she feels betrayed by Uncle Sam.
“My own country won’t protect the rights of my own children,” said the beautiful blond actress, fuming, after storming out of a Manhattan federal courtroom briefly Wednesday to compose herself as she suffered a big setback in her bid to keep her son Hermés, 7, and daughter Helena, 5, in the US.
Manhattan federal Judge Andrew Carter Jr. said he wouldn’t interfere with a California state judge’s 2012 order requiring the kids to live with their father, Rutherford’s ex-husband Daniel Giersch, in France. Although Carter won’t officially issue his written opinion until Friday, he said he doesn’t believe he has jurisdiction to issue any type of order prohibiting the children from returning to France once their summer vacation ends next week.
The couple has 50-50 custody, but as Page Six reported Wednesday, Rutherford, 45, of Manhattan, claims her kids are basically being “deported” through an odd legal fluke.
Giersch, a German citizen living in France, was expelled from the US for alleged visa fraud and failure to pay taxes.
Since he can’t visit the children in the US, a California state judge ordered that the children should remain with him during the school year. A cash-strapped Rutherford over the past two years has flown more than 40 times to France to see her children.
In another legal rarity, Rutherford’s legal team – which is working for free because the actress has already gone bankrupt shelling out $1.5 million in legal fees – recommended the government take steps to allow Giersch back into the US so that he’d no longer be able to dance around the legal loopholes allowing him to keep the American-born children in France.
Carter agreed to “facilitate” the plan, at one point allowing Giersch’s and Rutherford’s lawyers to meet in his robing room to discuss the idea. However, it was unclear afterwards if Giersch wants to pursue getting his US visa back.
“He has benefited by doing nothing,” said Michael J. Wildes, a lawyer for Rutherford. “This case underscores the blind spots in our law. We have a broken immigration system.”
A composed Rutherford said afterwards that she was thankful the judge and feds agreed to help broker an agreement with her ex. However, a half hour earlier she was noticeably upset after briefly leaving the courtroom.
She said her children as US citizens have a right to be educated in America and that “something like this would never happen” in any other country– especially “Germany.”
She also said the legal system is unfair because her children – “who are US citizens” — are being “forced” to leave America while she’s stuck paying taxes to help support the children of parents “who illegally crossed our borders.”
Rutherford filed suit on August 5 against US Attorney General Eric Holder and other federal officials, seeking a court order declaring the California ruling “unconstitutional” so that her children could remain in the country.
“No similar case could be found where children who were born and raised in the United States were deported from their own country, where their mother still resides, to accommodate the demands of a non-citizen parent forbidden to re-enter the United States,” the suit says.
Carter, however, said the children aren’t being “deported” in the official sense and that he believes their constitutional rights are not being violated. He said the “state court made a determination that the children should be with the father” and that he’s “convinced” he doesn’t have jurisdiction to overturn such a ruling.
Rutherford’s lawyers said they’d consider taking the case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals once Carter’s dismissal is official. However, time is running out because the children are required to return to France on August 19.