The U.S. State Department will begin revoking U.S. passports on Friday from parents who owe more than $100,000 in child support, the department told the Associated Press on Thursday, launching an expanded enforcement effort that eventually will target all parents with more than $2,500 in unpaid support.
The initial round of revocations will affect about 2,700 American passport holders, according to data supplied by the Department of Health and Human Services. The department said it soon plans to greatly expand the program to cover all parents who owe more than $2,500 — the threshold set by a 1996 law that has been only lightly enforced until now. It is not yet clear how many additional passport holders that will encompass because HHS is still collecting figures from state agencies, officials said.
Until this week, only parents who applied to renew their passports were subject to the penalty. Under the new policy, HHS will inform the State Department of all past-due payments exceeding $2,500, and parents in that group who hold valid passports will have them revoked.
“We are expanding a commonsense practice that has been proven effective at getting those who owe child support to pay their debt,” said Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar. “Once these parents resolve their debts, they can once again enjoy the privilege of a U.S. passport.”
The State Department said that since the AP first reported the expansion on Feb. 10, it has “seen data that hundreds of parents took action and resolved their arrears with state authorities since news broke that the State Department would start proactively revoking passports.” While the department cautioned that it could not confirm causation in every case, it said the program is being pursued “to impel these parents to do the right thing by their children and by U.S. law.”
Even before the policy was expanded, the department described the passport denial program as a “powerful tool” to collect unpaid child support. Since it began in earnest in 1998, states have collected some $657 million in arrears through the program, including more than $156 million in over 24,000 individual lump-sum payments during the past five years.
Parents whose passports are revoked will be notified that they cannot use their documents for travel and will have to apply for a new passport after their arrears are confirmed as paid. A passport holder who is abroad at the time of revocation will need to visit a U.S. embassy or consulate to obtain an emergency travel document allowing them to return to the United States.