A local family is taking on the federal government to be together.

Soldier and Texas A&M Grad Captain Cheyne Parham has been fighting to bring his wife and two children into the United States.

The family was denied visas and passports due to a question about the children's paternity.

"This is absolutely beyond comprehension why it is taking so long," Washington County District Attorney Bill Parham, Cheyne's father, said. "If he doesn't get them now, he'll be deployed over a year. They'll be three years old until he gets to hold them again."

It's a race against time for a Brenham couple trying to reunite their family.

"Until the State Department tells you you don't have enough, this is what is missing, this is what is required, we can't do anything. It's just sitting there in limbo," Parham said.

Cheyne Parham has been fighting to bring his wife and twin daughters to the US after the American Consulate in the Philippines denied his young family passports and visas because it isn't sure the kids are his.

The Parham's have produced birth certificates, a marriage license, insurance forms and a court ruling saying the kids are Cheyne's without any luck.

So after months of promises but never hearing anything back from the State Department, they're taking legal action.

"His response was now that you filed suit, we just have 60 more days, we don't have to answer until then," Jeanette Parham said.

"Perhaps once it gets in a judge's court room, a judge will say why are we here," Bill Parham said. "What is necessary at this point?"

For now though the Parham family has to just sit back and wait while two young girls grow up.

"They'll be a year old in two months. Well, they're not walking, but they're definitely crawling everywhere," Bill Parham said.

"I know they've missed their first anniversary," Jeanette added. "I know he missed not being with her on her first Mother's Day. I know he's fixing to miss his first Father's Day."

They are waiting to see if the man who's served his country for more than a decade will get to serve as a husband and father before heading into harm's way.

"All he wants to do is hold them before he is sent to his first combat. I don't think that's too much to ask," Jeanette Parham said.

Another thing complicating things for the Parham's is that the twin girls and Cheyne's wife, Joy, can not even come to US on an immigration or just temporary visa or passport because of the current probe into the kids' citizenship, so all the family can do now is wait for it to go through the court system.

"The State Department, while they're granting a pathway to citizenship to people who came into this country illegally, they're taking an active role in preventing his family from coming here legally," Jeanette Parham said.

Currently, the first trial date for the case has been set for mid-July in Houston, but the family says the hearing could be moved to Washington, D.C.

In the meantime, Cheyne's mother, who is also his attorney, says she will try and get the family brought to the US on a conditional bond. That would allow them to come stay in the US while the court sorts the case out.