EL PASO, Texas -- Jennifer McConnell said she hasn't seen her kids in a month, since her ex-husband picked them up for the weekend.

McConnell suspected something was wrong when her ex didn't enroll their two children, 12-year-old Omar and 7-year-old Nadia Mahmoud, in school.

"I was asking him where Nadia was going to school; he said, 'I'm not sure; I'm doing the paperwork.' I called the school, and they said he hadn't registered her there and they haven't seen him. He didn't even set foot inside the school."

McConnell shares custody of the kids with her ex-husband, Qutaiba Yahia Mahmoud, who lived in Las Cruces up until a few weeks ago. But now she fears they're in Sudan and not planning to come back. She also worries about the children's welfare.

"I used to have to pry him off of Omar; I used to get in between him and Omar," said McConnell.

McConnell found out her ex moved out of his Las Cruces apartment. Last week, she filed a missing person's report with Las Cruces police, but the children were removed from the database because, she said, a detective decided it was a civil matter.

"They were out of the system for a full 24 hours. During that time, that's when he boarded a plane with the kids," said McConnell.

KFOX called FBI, but agents couldn't confirm or deny that they had a missing persons case on them. Jennifer told KFOX a TSA agent was able to confirm visually the three going through a security checkpoint, a check that should have raised flags if the children were in the missing person's database.

"This was entirely preventable; they couldn't have been stopped on that plane, in three levels," said McConnell.