Associated Press – August 14, 2007 9:23 PM ET:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Tighter travel rules surrounding passports are creating some big benefits for single parents who’ve been waiting for child support payments.
Federal officials say more than $22 million has been collected this year from child support scofflaws.
The State Department denies passports to non-custodial parents who owe child support until they make good on their debts.
Now that millions of additional travelers need passports to fly back from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and South America, officials say collections under the program are on pace to about double this year.
A child support enforcement official in Washington state says “it’s been amazing to see” how people who owe child support can come up with the money when they need a passport.
In one case, a U.S. businessman now living in China paid more than $300,000 in back child support in order to get his passport.
The thing that troubles me about this is that apparently you don’t have to be charged with the crime of failure to pay child support to be denied a passport. You only have to owe child support. I see nothing wrong with being denied a passport if you’re charged with a crime. But if the government can block us from traveling merely because we owe child support, it’s only a matter of time before they do the same when we’re behind paying our credit cards or our cable bill.
I agree of course due to my knowledge on the subject and in short if you owe more than 2,500 then you are obviously not a little behind on payments and yet these men are able to plan vacations and pay the 127+ for a passport while their child(ren) are left in the dark. Also if they are in as deep as some of these individuals are then whos to say that they are not going to make a run for it? Also in some cases these people are avoiding the possiblilty of a crime since every state is different in how child support is dealt with.
It’s nice to see WA state still screwing with people’s lives. I in no way condone not paying court ordered child support but WA at one time handed out benefits like Skittles. I know from personal experience that WA allows people to sign up for welfare illegally and then go after the non-custodial parent based on the custodial parent perjuring themselves.
If I were a WA resident I’d be so proud of my state government pissing away taxpayers money in that manner.
1. “A judge was involved at some point in the decision and you have allready gone through the legal system.”
Judges are only involved with disputed cases. If paternity is not disputed, there is no reason for a judge to be involved. The vast majority of cases never go through a judicial system but remain with the various state agencies.
caederus has the nub of the problem. A court orders you to pay, you have a chance under our judicial system to object or to appeal the decision.
Just walking away from your obligations is not an option.
There are way too many non-custodial parents who just don’t want the hassle of making the payments. True there are exceptions, but that is what the court system is there to resolve.
Taking this to the extreme of credit cards and the like is an age old journalist trick to make an issue where there is none.
John, get Cranky about something important! not these shulbs who walk out on their obligations!
The State Department should not be denying passport applications for any reason unless they suspect fraud on the appliction. If a judge wants to take a persons passport away for failure to pay child support, that should be a judges call.
Someone needs to challenge this one.
As with all ‘mandated’ issues, its “for the sake of the children” and thats usually the signal that someone really wanted to pass this as a law, but needed some sort of justification to make it stick, because otherwise it would appear to be a ‘bad’ law.
This is ridiculous. I am all for paying child support, and being held accountable for ones actions, but to equate a non-payment (dead-beat dad?) with a felony (felons cannot travel outside the US) and prohibit travel, is just beyond scary.
“Oh, but its for a good reason” only works until they start taking the ability away for other reasons. This type of restriction always seem to be put in place for one reason, only to migrate into a daily fabric of other reasons to prevent activity.
Of course, with this government in place now, I don’t see how anyone would be surprised by this.
Before anything is taken away, the child support system should make sure they have the right person. A co-worker of mine had his wages garnished for a few months from the Chicago Child Support agency. The co-worker has never been to Chicago and didn’t know the mother involved. Only his first and last name matched the real deadbeat dad. It took a lawyer and several months to clear his name and get his money back.
Just think if my co-worker had to go overseas for the company but was denied a passport.
Some good examples of argumentative fallacies:
0. But if the government can block us from traveling merely because we owe child support, it’s only a matter of time before they do the same when we’re behind paying our credit cards or our cable bill. (Slippery Slope)
3. Completely irrelevant but supposedly bad? So, cant trust them. (Broad Brush, Appeal to Anti-Authority)
7. Another slippery slope.
8. and another slippery slope.
So what again is right or wrong with THIS enforcement plan? I agreee with No 6 that a judge “could be” involved with this enforcement–but its not necessary. Protecting its citizens IS a job for the Executive Branch of Government. Denying passports is too much like denying cavier and champagne ?? Oh, the horror!!!!
Not having a passport certainly doesn’t stop people from coming in to the US. Not having one shouldn’t stop anyone from getting out. Your cover would merely be carrying a weed whacker and head south.
If you are a BUM then pay your bills …pretty simple Eh!
If you are behind with a court order, you should not be entitled to all societies perqs. That shouldn’t matter if you are behind with alimony, child support, bankruptcy, debt, or any other form of repayment. That is only for when a Court has already ruled on a case. The only out I would allow would be for if the matter is under appeal.
Something no one else has brought up is those who just take off and don’t even go to court in the first place. Usually the other parent has no idea where that person is. Since they have left the jurisdiction and / or gone underground, this could be a legitimate method to discover their whereabouts and have them re-assume their obligations. Of course, I would be truly hesitant about applying this in unproven paternity cases.
>>The State Department should not be denying passport applications
>>for any reason unless they suspect fraud on the appliction.
This is part of the initiative begun by the Republicans (formerly known, ironically, as supporters of states’ rights) to consolidate every bit of power in the United States into the hands of a half-dozen people in the Executive Branch.
Fully consistent with their other actions.
Passports and Child Support should NOT be related at all. Sadly, most of you who are owed support think that 2500USD is an outrageous amount to be behind…and it is, if your child support order is 100USD a month…HOWEVER, MANY child support orders are 1K-2K a month or sometimes even more! With that said, what happens if you fall on hard times (anything from getting sick to anything else) and one month you can’t make ends meet? What if you lost your job, which many in the US have due to off-shoring, etc… and therefore, had no way to make that 2K a month payment? So, then you find another job and attempt to catch up and now you owe 10K…but your new job, maybe even a better job if your lucky, requires that you travel and because of this crazy CS issue, you can’t travel? Does that mean that you then also don’t have to pay CS because they are the ones making you lose your job possibly again?
Also, what most of you fail to realize is that the child support offices believe you are GUILTY until proven innocent…ie. you pay your child support directly to the ex spouse, the ex spouse one day decides she wants more, you say no, she takes you to court and tells them you never paid…the court will ACTUALLY (it has happened to my husband and another friend) garnish your wages, report you to credit bureaus, garnish your income tax…WITHOUT you EVER going to trial and finding out the truth…then, when you finally go to court and they find out the truth, they say…oops! sorry…and more than likely, never fix anything for months or EVER, like in our case…
So, no, this is outrageous and BS…NO OTHER parent out there who loses his job in an intact family or is unable or does not provide for their children goes to jail, no other parent is denied a passport, no other parent gets this treatment at all…only divorced parents…and this is outrageous and ridiculous.
And should you have to declare how much money you’re taking with you?
#5 – A court orders you to pay, you have a chance under our judicial system to object or to appeal the decision.
Not in the case of child support. These draconian laws are brutal and unforgiving, and actually are a disincentive to fathers who wish to be involved in their children’s lives. Many so called “deadbeat” dads are just normal guys who were hit so severely that they could pay both child support and their own rent, forcing them underground.
And you simply cannot reason with the government on child support. If you didn’t marry your kid’s mother, you are fucked, and in turn so is your kid and the mother too.
Well hey if it works well with child support, maybe we should do the same for people who owe back taxes, and unpaid tickets and fines.
It’s not ridiculous. If you owe child support then you should pay it. DHS can intercept your tax return if you are delinquient on child support. Do you think that is ridiculous also? Why should the parent who is owed child support have to fight & fight to collect? Once a judge says you owe child support, agencies like DHS should have as many tools as possible at their disposal to collect.
If you fall on hard times, you go back to court & explain your situation. They will work with people. If you loose your job or take a pay cut, the amount you owe goes down.
Stop defending dead-beat parents. If by doing this, parents are able to collect child support, then it is a good thing.
#14, whatamess,
You have some things confused. IF someone is paying too much, then they have the option of appealing the order. It is highly doubtful that many courts are assessing $2,000 / mth per child unless the parent is earning several times that amount. If you earn $10,000 month, then $2,000 for your child is not an unreasonable amount.
If the parent remarries then it is his / her responsibility to assess their own fortunes to see if they can tolerate the lower standard of living that children inevitably bring. Children are not toys or status symbols. They are financial obligations AND time consumers. Remarrying does not make them go away or starts your life over again.
IF you lose your job or come into unforeseen financial difficulty, again, you may ask the court to reassess the amount of support due. The same applies if there are outstanding payments. If you only pay what you can and ask the court to reconsider the support amount based upon your new situation, most courts will oblige.
If you pay cash for ANYTHING, don’t be surprised if the other party suddenly claims you didn’t pay. Pay by check. If the other party doesn’t want a check then send the check to the Child Welfare office. Don’t ignore the obligation or give untraceable cash !!!
The thing to remember is the courts are not out to screw people over. They are there for the good of the children. YOUR children. The children that did not ask to be brought into the world. The children you bore or fathered. I think you will find that most of the problems arise because the parent losing his job just ignored all his responsibilities and didn’t ask the court to reassess the support order.
>>It’s not ridiculous. If you owe child support then you should pay it.
Right. And if you threaten your ex -wife or children, you should be prevented from having contact with them. Try googling “restraining order abuse” though, to read horror stories of fathers who have been taken to the cleaners while simultaneously being denied access to their kids, because a vindictive ex-wife filed a bogus restraining order (year after year after year, in many cases) just because she could.
When it comes to domestic squabbles these days, I’m afraid it’s a wymmin’s world. Men are guilty until proven innocent.
In any case, how many deadbeat dads are really going to book a flight to Monte Carlo to get out of paying child support? Is this really worth giving up every vestige of control over our lives to the federal government? Christ, they can’t even supply health care for citizens, rebuild New Orleans, or give body armor to combat soldiers.
Yes. Boy, that was an easy answer.
20—M Mustard==I like your thinking. 5 years ago in Kansas some guy had a nutso wife who got an unfair restraining order, so now I should get a passport to travel overseas and not pay my child support.
Perfect logic!!!
16—Child support orders are not appealable? Sounds strange. But I’ll buy it if you can tell me how travelling overseas gets you more involved in your childs upbringing.
>>5 years ago in Kansas some guy had a nutso wife who got
>>an unfair restraining order,
No Bobbo, your platonic dialog model is falling apart here. Google before you speak. Check new England. There are more nutso wives than that one in Kansas, and the courts have swallowed their bait, hook, line and sinker.
>>Child support orders are not appealable?
Sure they are. All you need is a $5000 retainer for the lawyer, and a thick skin so that when you lose, your feelings don’t get hurt.
You may be pussywhipped to the extent that you think women are always the victims in these cases. And, as in so many other instances here on DU, you would be dead wrong. Thank goodness my ex-wife is reasonable, and I never had to deal with any of that nonsense. I’ve seen FAR more of it than I can stomach, though, and I don’t think I’ve ever been to Kansas. I went to the Anheuser-Busch brewery once for a tour, but I think that was Kansas City MO. The Clydesdales were great. Very impressive horses.
>>But I’ll buy it if you can tell me how travelling overseas gets you
>>more involved in your childs upbringing.
Well, if it’s part of your job, it helps you take home a salary, which means you can pay the child support, take them on vacation, buy Christmas and birthday presents. You know. The usual stuff. And it’s not just “overseas” that you need a passport for.
Any further questions?
24–So MM==should a person skip out on child support and knowingly be given a passport or not?
We can work on those other issues when they become relevant?
Oh, ya’all haven’t noticed? The Justice System no longer exists. It is now the Legal System.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent — that’s how the Legal System works these days, it happens all the time…
>>should a person skip out on child support and knowingly be
>>given a passport or not?
Ah, bobbo, bobbo, bobbo. I’m getting out of this discussion before you grind me down to a nub with your incessant Platonic Dialog. You’re kind of tiresome that way, you know?
And no. Nobody should “skip out on child support”. I guess whether you think that should be dealt with by the local courts, they should be summarily executed upon accusation (many of which are false, btw) without the benefit of judge, jury, or trial, or the whole thing should be handed over to INS to rectify the problem is up to you.
Over and out.
It is the option of the Health and Human services of the state in question to add the name of the individual who is not paying child support to the list so if you want your passport then you go to them. This all boils down to the decisions made by the parties involved. No one forced you to have children, or get married, however grow up and do what is needed rather than claim this is some power play made by one or two people to suppress hard working men who need to drive over the border which at the moment they don’t need a passport for.
What people often don’t understand, because they are not in the BS Support System as a man, you can be behind through NO FAULT of your own VERY easily. For example the b***h I had a kid with appealed the judges ruling that was in my favor and got a more sympathetic judge. This immediately put me $5K behind. I had paid what i was told when I was told and had NEVER missed a payment but I was labeled a dead-beat and even had my credit ruined as over $2000 is reported to the credit agencies. I did NOTHING wrong! Yet I have to endure stuff like this!?!? BTW: I was told to pay it back $17 a week….instead I paid it back in less than 4 months. I didn’t even get a thank you.
Anybody get the feeling alot of these posters are women with male handles?