Kelly Rutherford Is Petitioning The White House To Bring Her Two Kids Back To The US

The last time we checked in on Kelly Rutherford’s dramatic Not Without My Two Fancy-Named Children custody battle, a federal court had just denied her request to bring her children, Hermes and Helena, back to the US from France, where they had been living with their father/Kelly’s ex-husband Daniel Giersch since 2012. Because the words “federal court” sound very serious to me, and I assumed that was as far as Kelly would be able to take her custody battle, but apparently it’s not. People says Kelly is now going to President Obama with it.

On Tuesday, Kelly created an online White House petition titled “The undersigned hereby implore the Obama administration to return Kelly Rutherford’s children safely to the U.S.A.” that reads:

“At ages 2 and 5, Kelly Rutherford’s children were forced by a California judge to live in France with their German father, (nobody is French) after he claimed his U.S. visa was revoked, and he could not enter the U.S. The children’s appointed counsel said they should remain in the U.S., but the judge sent the children to France, solely because the father claimed he could not return to the U.S., even though NO evidence has been produced from any American official stating that the father was EVER denied entry into the U.S., and the father refused to request a visa. Instead, he filed court papers in Monaco, causing the children to be declared “habitual residents” subject solely to Monaco law. The father also recently filed papers seeking to strip Kelly of all parental rights.”

The petition currently has 8,647 of the 100,000 signatures it needs by May 28th. Her attorney, Wendy Murphy, explains to People why she created the White House petition:

“This is a political problem for President Obama and a constitutional problem for the courts. The president recently issued an executive order declaring that children born in this country to illegal immigrant parents must be allowed to remain in this country. Mr. Obama specifically talked about the importance of mothers and children being allowed to stay together in America. How could Kelly and her children not be entitled to at least the same legal protections?”

Oh brother. This just managed to get even messier and more dramatic, and I didn’t think that was possible. This is like a Lifetime movie on spam email steroids.

I know I should be sad for Kelly and her custody battle, but I CAN’T with that White House petition. Does her attorney not know those things are basically useless? I mean, the people who created that White House petition to deport Justin Bieber met their goal of 100,000 signatures, and he’s clearly still around.