When Domestic Violence victims flee for their safety to another state (jurisdiction) with their children, it may cause them to fight long custody battles over state lines. Also, Abusers often carry out their threat to leave the state with the children. So, Interstate Custody fights are not uncommon in Domestic Violence situations. Which State is the appropriate one to take the evidence and rule on the custody decision can be crucial to the outcome of the case because of the time and expense of litigation. Generally, the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA) was written to attempt to meet these concerns, as was the Parental Kidnapping Protection Act.

The UCCJA is a uniform law of which every State has enacted its own version. It tells a State court when it can exercise jurisdiction over custody decisions. It decides which State court should decide a custody case. The purpose of the law is to avoid jurisdictional disputes between states, so that cases do not have to be re-litigated in another State.

The UCCJA has four categories of jurisdiction which help the courts decide which jurisdiction should rule on the custody case. It sets 4 main criteria for jurisdiction in custody cases that a court must consider when deciding if it should handle a custody determination or whether it should deter to another state. (Because these categories are not prioritized under the UCCJA, there can be a conflict with the Parental Kidnapping Protection Act's "home state".)

Under the UCCJA, a state must have one of the following bases for jurisdiction to decide a custody case:

1. Home State of the Child Jurisdiction
   
   This is the State in which the child lived with a parent for the six previous months prior to the custody action being filed.
   
   
2. Significant Connection Jurisdiction
   
   A State has Significant Connection to the custody case if it is the State in which the child and at least one parent have substantial evidence concerning the child's present or future care. Evidence in the areas of family, school, medical care, and other evidence relating to the day to day environment of the child can be found in that State.
   
   
3. Emergency Jurisdiction
   
   The child is physically present in the state, and the court must protect the child because an emergency exists, for example because the child being threatened, abused, mistreated, or neglected. The child may have been abandoned or is in danger of abuse or neglect, if returned to the other State. 
   
   
4. Jurisdiction of Last Resort
   
   There is no State that can meet at least one of the above tests.

The UCCJA permits a Court to decline jurisdiction if a parent has "unclean hands" which means that parent has " wrongfully taken the child from another State or engaged in reprehensible conduct" or has engaged in " unjustifiable conduct". This allows a Court to decline jurisdiction if a parent has wrongfully taken the child from another State and kept them in another state to punish the Victim.

The UCCJA permits a court to decline jurisdiction if it determines that it is an inconvenient forum for the case to be heard. For example, a State with Home State jurisdiction may decide that the other State where a Victim fled with the child is the more appropriate jurisdiction.

The following information is required to be submitted to the Court in pleadings according to the UCCJA:

• Child's present address
• Places the child has lived in the last five years
• Names and addresses of persons with whom the child lived in the past five years
• Information about the other persons who claim to have rights to custody or visitation

If disclosing the above information would place the Victim and child in danger, the party should ask the Court to waive disclosure.

Congress enacted the PKPA in 1980 to resolve jurisdictional conflict between States and deter parental child abduction. It attempted to resolve jurisdictional disputes that were left unsettled by the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA).

The PKPA ensures that only one State has preferred jurisdiction in a custody case, and it requires other States to enforce custody orders by that State.

The PKPA lists the same four bases for jurisdiction as the UCCJA, but the PKPA GIVES JURISDICTIONAL PRIORITY TO THE CHILD'S HOME STATE. This means that if two conflicting custody orders are given in two different States, only the order from the child's Home State should be honored in other States.

Under the PKPA, the four bases for jurisdiction to decide a custody case are as follows:

1. Home State of the Child Jurisdiction
   
   This is the State in which the child lived with a parent for the six previous months prior to the custody action being filed.
   
   
2. Significant Connection Jurisdiction
   
   Under the PKPA, a State can only have Significant Connection jurisdiction if the child has no Home State. Then the child and parent must have a Significant Connection with the State. This means the child and at least one parent have substantial evidence concerning the child's present or future care. Evidence in the areas of family, school, medical care, and other evidence relating to the day-to-day environment of the child must be able to be found in that State. 
   
   
3. Emergency Jurisdiction
   
   The PKPA definition of Emergency Jurisdiction is narrower than the definition in the UCCJA. In the PKPA the court can exercise Emergency Jurisdiction if the child is physically present in the state, and
   
   
   • the court must protect the child because the child has been abandoned 
     
   • the child is being threatened, abused, or mistreated
     
     
4. Jurisdiction of Last Resort
   
   This type of jurisdiction exists when no State can meet one of the above tests of Home State, Significant Connection, Emergency, or Continuing Jurisdiction.

The PKPA's rules can force a domestic violence Victim who has fled the Home State of a child because of abuse, to return to that State to have the custody case decided, unless that State declined based on inconvenient forum.

The PKPA authorized the Federal Parent Locator Service to be used to locate a parent or child when the information is used to enforce a state or federal kidnapping law or to make or enforce a child custody determination.

Recent amendments to the Federal Parent Locator Service have clarified that it shall not disclose information in domestic violence or child abuse cases, except to a court.