In the midst of her own custody battle with ex-husband Daniel Giersch, the former Gossip Girl star flew to Washington, D.C. and detailed her fight to bring her eight-year-old son Hermes and daughter Helena, six, home to America.

The kids live in Monaco and France with their father, but are currently spending the summer with their mum after judges in California and Monaco agreed she should be able to enjoy a holiday with them.

She told politicians, "Nobody in this country seems willing or able to do anything to help bring my American children home, even though this is the country that sent them away.

"I can only see this as a legal kidnapping by a California judge forcing my children to live abroad for so long that the other countries seize control over their lives. I just ask each of you here today how it is possible that two American citizens have been ordered by their own government to live in exile in a foreign country?"

Rutherford was on Capitol Hill to support the Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act, a law that went into effect last August that gives State Department officials the authority to bring American children who have been kidnapped and taken overseas back to U.S. soil.

The actress' husband was given full custody of the couple's children in 2012.