A 17-year-old girl is being barred from leaving Brazil after federal police said she didn’t have the right paperwork to leave the country with her mother and younger sister.
Bella Wisniewski was born in Oceanside and is a U.S. citizen, but she is also a citizen of her mother’s native country, Brazil, which has strict laws concerning children who are traveling with one, but not both parents.
Bella, along with her sister Luna and their mother, Dina Wisniewski, left the family’s 42-foot catamaran in Mexico in May to visit the girls’ grandmother in Brazil. Three weeks later, as they were trying to board a flight from Sao Paolo, they were told Bella could not leave the country.
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The three were stranded without the help or the funds they needed to get home.
“It’s been 12 days since then and they’re still not home,” said Bella’s father, Paul Wisniewski, via Zoom.
Home is the family’s 42-foot catamaran, now docked near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Paul Wisniewski told NBC 7 the boat will stay in port until hurricane season is over.
The Wisniewskis sold their home in Carlsbad seven years ago to embark on a new lifestyle, traveling the world aboard the SV Bella Luna.
“It’s a beautiful life, except when things like this happen,” said Paul Wisniewski.
Since his daughter was ordered to stay in Brazil, he’s spent every waking hour calling, texting and e-mailing people to try to reunite his family.
“I’m a skateboarder, so I have skateboarding connections in Brazil at the highest level and they’ve put me in touch with politicians there that still weren’t able to do anything," Wisniewski said.
Wisniewski added that he reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Brazil with no luck.
“For me it’s really emotional. I flip-flop between anger and sadness,” the frustrated father told NBC 7 just one week before Father’s Day.
Wisniewski explained that he and his wife had drawn up and notarized authorization documents in both English and Spanish to allow Bella to travel into and out of Brazil.
The U.S. Embassy website in Brazil may have the answer to the family’s dilemma. It reads in bold type: “Authorizations written in English or executed before a U.S. (or any non-Brazilian) notary public are not accepted by the Brazilian Federal Police.”
NBC 7 reached out to the U.S. State Department to see if they had any information on the situation. A spokesperson sent us this response: “When a U.S. citizen is in need overseas, we stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance. For questions related to exit controls in Brazil, we refer you to the Brazilian government.“
Paul Wisniewski doesn’t want to leave the family boat and pets in Mexico, but he will if that’s what it takes to bring Bella home.
The family has been granted a hearing before a judge on June 15. They’re hoping for the best.
In the meantime, friends have started a GoFundMe page to raise money for legal and travel expenses.
