Postal Letter

I was living in USA all my life. I met, fell in like/love with and had a baby bory with a British man.?

To get to the point (this is a long one...so please bear with me even with my keeping out countless important details so I can get to the problem at hand. I can post later a question regarding those other vital pieces of the puzzle. When we came to England, myself and my 8 months old son at that time we were treated like royalty by his paternal grandmother, I ended up staying with my son for multi-reasons to date. Now, I had never travelled before outside of USA and having getting my passport and my baby's passport was new to me., but went to a postal service office who expedited the passports, and within 9 days we were on our way with our first ever passports. ***I had never known that a child of my son's age when he received his passport expires in "6 years", very unlike mine as an adult which is "10 years before expiration". Paternal grandmother got freaky and (yes I feel 100% responsible,-She offered at her idea to "hold" our passports in her safe for us whilst we "visit" here with her. (her son and i never married-and that was a smart move on my part-however I was asked continually to add his father's surname after my surname to my son's passport. As she convinced me with telling me i would be giving him countless opportunities by doing that because he would have dual nationalitiy privleges, and i would be silly not to take advantage of that for him-I never planned on adding his name with mine, for we would not be together forever in my eyes at that point unfortunately.) Well, I received a letter from American Passport application center where I applied, and they informed me that they noticed I "let my son's passport expire"-(Mine is coming up for renewal in 1.5 years) I need some help, any help would be greatly appreciated!-The evil granny, if you will, did keep the passports out of sight with the plot and plan to make it as difficult to get back home with him as possible. She has never been the "loving grandmother figure whatsoever-on the contrary she is quite cold and expresses herself in a mean manner after all. Well she cleverly succeeded in aiding in making this difficult. She also kept (with her prompting and persuading me insisting I was doing the "very best" I could for my baby by keeping not only both passports, but both our "original" birth certificates. Now, I am over due to get back home with my son. We have stayed here too long!-I asked her for our birth certificates and both passports and told her I was going to seek help in getting our passport renewed for my son, the expired passport and renew mine before that one expires as well. She told me "I NEVER gave her any birth certificates"-It is a cold hard lie. She has caused me untold/undeserved grief many times, but this is the last straw. Please can anyone help me with advice as to the quickest, and best possible way to sort this on my own? I now have no birth certificates for myself nor for my son. I do have the issuing office address and phone number in USA for the "social security/passport office dept." which I received with my son's birth certificate when it was mailed to me shortly after is birth. I understand there is the American Embassy and they allegedly can help me, but it is all foreign to me, and I felt I could get (please God) some good sound advice from you by posting my dillema as clear and short as I could. (Sorry if it may have seemed not as short and to the point as I would have liked) Thank you in advance for any helpful advice.!

Public Comments

1. First, I'd get the local police involved and have them request getting the passports back. If not follow the State Dept.'s advice....
2. get thee to the American Embassy ASAP and then get away from this madlady as quickly as you can and come home. in the mean time what is the baby's father saying about all of this? why is he not sticking up for you and his son?
3. Contact your local US consulate immediately.
4. Your son's American passport has expired. It is no longer any good. However, you probably need to tell Evil Granny that you will report her to the police for illegally holding his passport. In the mean time, go the the American Embassy to renew your son's passport. You would have to bring a copy of his birth certificate. You can get a copy by contacting the department of vital statistics in the county in the US where he was born. Hope this helps
5. you can take her to court for this or get a lawyer and get tht bitch done she stole from you and shes in a way, false imprisoning you in this country by doing this, i would ring asolcitor find the number in the yellow pages ASAP she can seriously get in trouble for this and you can also get another birth certificate and even if the passport expires you can get another you even count as a british citazen now i think and can apply for a british one then travel back to america with that then after 2 years ( i htink ) you can reapply for a usa passport hope this helps im only 16 but i know quite alot about law and i have friends that have moved to usa and had to deal with passports x
6. why would you give her your official passports and birth cirtificates? thats crazy trust no one. i thought everyone learned that by the end of high school?
7. Never having been in this situation I can only imagine how frustrating & scary it must be being "held against your will" so to speak. If I was you I would go straight to the American Embassy & start proceedings to get yours & your Sons Birth Certificates re-issued ASAP then you'll be able to get your Passports renewed I'm a bit confused as to whether you actually did add your Son's Fathers name to his Birth Cert &/or Passport if you didn't then I don't think you'll have any further problems getting things underway. But... if you did then I think you know that you'll have to have your Sons Fathers permission to leave the Country For yours & your Sons sake I certainly hope it's the former Good Luck & I hope you are back home soon
8. Go to the US embassy and explain your problem. They can help you.You also might try going to the police for help. If not, an attorney probably could help but would be expensive.
9. It is illegal for that woman to hold your birth certificates & passports, since she's apparently a manipulative devious b*tch just call the police without telling her that way she has no time to get her story straight. Ring the American Embassy, you don't know what they can do for you if they don't ring them. http://www.usembassy.org.uk/ukaddres.html Your child may be entitled to a British passport but adding the father's surname to the child's won't entitle him to the passport. Since you are unmarried, if the baby was born before January 2006 he won't be able to claim British citizenship through his father. Edit: William O, as the child entered the UK on a US passport then yes she can ask the US Embassy for help with her child. If she had brought him over on a British passport, they wouldn't be able to intervene.
10. You need a solicitor (lawyer). You brought your child a dual citizen to the UK. He is a dual citizen by the fact that his father is a British citizen. The US Embassy technically has no legal jurisdiction over your son as he is a British citizen in the UK. Get a solicitor!