US passports will be revoked for parents who owe child support, State Dept. says
The State Department says it will begin revoking passports for parents with "significant" child support debt (Eric Paul Zamora/The Fresno Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The State Department will begin revoking U.S. passports for parents with "significant" child support debt, the agency announced Thursday.
If parents don’t settle their child support obligations before their passport is revoked, they can’t use it for international travel. Here’s the latest:
Passports revoked for back child support
What we know:
According to the State Department, federal law allows the agency to revoke passports for anyone who owes more than $2,500 in child support.
The State Department will initially target people who owe $100,000 or more. About 2,700 passport holders fall in that range, officials said. Parents whose passports are taken away can’t get a new one until all the child support debt is paid.
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Passports could be revoked while the passport holder is abroad, the State Department said. If that happens, the passport holder must visit a U.S. embassy or consulate for an emergency travel document that allows them to return to the United States.
What we don't know:
It’s unclear how many passport holders owe more than $2,500 in child support, but the number could be in the thousands.
Timeline:
The revocations will begin Friday for parents who owe $100,000 or more. The program will expand soon to anyone with more than $2,500 in unpaid child support.
What they're saying:
"This action supports the welfare of American children by exacting real consequences for child support delinquency under existing federal law," the State Department said in a statement.
Even before expanding the policy, the department said the program has been a "powerful tool" to get parents to pay what they owed. Since it began in earnest in 1998, states have collected some $657 million in arrears, including more than $156 million in over 24,000 individual lump-sum payments over the past five years.
The Source: This report includes information from the State Department and The Associated Press.