US will start revoking passports for parents who owe child support

OOutOfHere about 23 hours ago 58 commentsRead Article on apnews.com

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handedness•about 20 hours ago

Not commenting one way or the other, but here is what authorizes this:

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)[0]

SEC. 370. DENIAL OF PASSPORTS FOR NONPAYMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT. (a) HHS Certification Procedure.— (1) Secretarial responsibility.—Section 452 (42 U.S.C. 652), as amended by section 345 of this Act, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: “(k)(1) If the Secretary receives a certification by a State agency in accordance with the requirements of section 454(31) that an individual owes arrearages of child support in an amount exceeding $5,000, the Secretary shall transmit such certification to the Secretary of State for action (with respect to denial, revocation, or limitation of passports) pursuant to paragraph (2). “(2) The Secretary of State shall, upon certification by the Secretary transmitted under paragraph (1), refuse to issue a passport to such individual, and may revoke, restrict, or limit a passport issued previously to such individual.[1]

The above may have predated the amended copy, as a threshold of $2,500 seemed to be the case at least 3 years ago, for whatever that is worth.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Wo...

[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1793/uslm/COMPS-17...

samlinnfer•about 21 hours ago

Looks like China is just ahead of the curve where you can't buy a plane ticket or book a train if you owe debts.

actionfromafar•about 20 hours ago

And in Dubai you can't open your door!

Perenti•about 20 hours ago

I've been told that American's have a very low rate of passport issuance. I don't know if that's true, but the figure quoted was only 10% of adults hold passports. Is this a really effective way to get people to pay for their kids, or just the appearance of doing something to quiet the voters?

iamthemonster•about 14 hours ago

In 1990 it was only 5% of Americans and now it's 50%. In the UK it's 85% but a better comparison is probably France who are in the Schengen Area so only 60% have a passport.

If I lived in France I doubt I would travel outside of the Schengen Area.

mothballed•about 14 hours ago

About half of Americans traveling to/from Mexico by land at a small crossing i noticed didn't even have them (recently). Turns out Mexico doesn't legally require a passport for entry and the US has to take back citizens who appear without one. This won't do shit to stop escaping deadbeats, just another scheme to punish parents at a threshold so low it could be a single misreported tech worker payment while doing fuck all for the kids.

And people wonder why no one is having kids. It is punishment after punishment by a society who pretends to care about kids but does fuck all to help, only to rub it in your face and punish you when you are down.

antonvs•about 13 hours ago

> Turns out Mexico doesn't legally require a passport for entry

This isn't true. See e.g. https://consulmex.sre.gob.mx/washington/index.php/ligavisos/... :

> "All foreigners, regardless of their nationality, are required to present a valid and not expired passport or travel document when entering Mexico (traveling by air, land or sea)."

What you may have observed is Mexican border control at a small crossing may not enforce that requirement.

hdgvhicv•about 19 hours ago

There’s about 180m us passports, so about half the country has one, about the same percentage as France.

ThePowerOfFuet•about 17 hours ago

How many of those are second passports for the benefit of people who wish to visit Israel without the added friction that Israeli stamps in their primary passport would bring?

Also, EU citizens do not require a passport to travel within the EU; by law, their national ID card suffices, thus making passports unnecessary for much of their travel.

gcr•about 16 hours ago

Most Americans don’t generally visit Israel.

It’s generally very difficult to get a second passport.

zulux•about 13 hours ago

As a tourist, I’ve noticed the countries most obsessed with Israel usually aren’t winning any “pleasant place to visit” awards.

Saline9515•about 17 hours ago

In practice many still own passports, as they are considered as better proofs of identity when you travel.

myth_drannon•about 11 hours ago

Israel doesn't stamp your passport if you ask.

defrost•about 19 hours ago

It's possible this might have a significant (not small, not necessarily large) impact on the smaller subset of delinquent parents that might currently have a larger double digit percentage (30% say) skipping to Canada, Mexico, or elsewhere to avoid being chased down.

Or not.

The main point here is that it's not the entire population of regular US citizens that should be looked at here, more the specific behaviour of the subset in question.

mothballed•about 10 hours ago

The constitution (article 11) of Mexico provides an explicit right of every person to enter Mexico without a passport (that doesn't mean every person in general -- you can be barred -- but not because you don't have a passport). You can witness this at land border crossings -- I routinely watch them let in foreigners without them (they're not following whatever uncited nonsense you read at the consulate wrongly claiming a passport is 'required' without citing any law). It is subject to immigration enforcement, but they're legally barred from requiring a passport. It won't do dick to stop delinquent people from leaving and anywhere that actually thoroughly checks passports also is a member of international child support enforcement treaties.

defrost•about 2 hours ago

Interesting, never knew that.

As an aside I've been in and out of Mexico a bunch of times (formerly entered, 5 or 6 times; crossed the border, literally a hundred+ times) - but as an Australian geophysical exploration surveyor on the job it's always been via other people dealing with all the paperwork.

bawolff•about 20 hours ago

Presumably it would be very effective for some demographics and not so effective for others. 10% is still a very large group of people. People who would be affected are also probably people who can afford international travel, so the affected are probably disporportionally the group who are failing to pay despite having a bunch of spare income.

rho138•about 20 hours ago

As an american it is true that most people don’t have passports - the act of flying internationally is either out of reach economically or culturally. This does give mostly out of touch opression where the margins are the targets and the white dudes will likely get a pass, so the latter.

Reubachi•about 14 hours ago

As an American, it is not true that most people don't have passports.

There are currently 180 million and change active issued passport to US citizens.

egorfine•about 19 hours ago

What does it mean "out of reach culturally"? Genuine question, I'm very curious about it.

rincebrain•about 18 hours ago

I've met a lot of people in the US who assume they cannot afford to fly anywhere, much less to another country, without having ever priced any part of it, they simply Knew from cultural osmosis they were not The Kind Of People Who Could Do That.

I am assuming that's what they meant.

rho138•about 14 hours ago

@gcr had the closest contact to the point I was alluding to. The world has been painted as this big scary place where there’s only violence and that can be identified from the type and behavior of people being sent here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_pet-eating_hoax)

gcr•about 15 hours ago

I’m guessing that a lot of Americans are either fearful of or indifferent to the rest of the world. My broad estimate is that maybe half of us have been outside the country.

danaris•about 8 hours ago

The purpose of this isn't to twist people's arms to pay for their kids.

It's to punish poor, especially nonwhite, people and make it hard for them to escape the oppression of the Trump regime.

readthenotes1•about 8 hours ago

You're saying that Trump and company are trying to get the people of color who don't pay their child support to not leave the country. I'm not sure what the problem is. Can you explain it further?

I'm also curious why you think it is only targeting people of color and not people of white

danaris•about 7 hours ago

If they leave the country voluntarily, then Trump & co can't put them in concentration camps.

And it's targeting poor people, who are disproportionately nonwhite.

stuaxo•about 17 hours ago

This sounds worse for the kids themselves.

OutOfHere•about 13 hours ago

Child support is just the start. It won't be long before passports are revoked for a number of other reasons too.

thefz•about 17 hours ago

Great, now do it with tax evaders.

UberFly•about 20 hours ago

Owing child support is a negative on children and society in general, but I'm sure there are plenty who will argue in favor of it.

RiverCrochet•about 13 hours ago

I never understood this line of logic:

- X doesn't pay child support because X lost their job.

- X gets their driver's license revoked because they missed child support payments.

So ... how are you supposed to find a new job with out a car in most U.S. communities? This doesn't improve the situation for anyone involved, but allows the state to make it much, much worse.

marcusverus•about 13 hours ago

Who said anything about revoking drivers licenses?

RiverCrochet•about 10 hours ago

Every state it seems.

I found this link informative.

https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/license-restrictions-for...

casefields•about 11 hours ago

California revoked license to those who dont pay child support. Many other states do it too.

bsder•about 20 hours ago

I don't have much of a problem with the $100K penalties.

I have a lot more issue with a $2.5K limit--that could be just one or two (intentionally or unintentionally) misreported payments. Or a paycheck hiccup. Or a layoff. Or a government error (because we all know how infallible DOGE was). Or a government shutdown. Or ...

We specifically decry the concepts of debtor's prisons and social credit in the US. For good reasons.

This is leaving aside the whole discussion about your passport being an identity document that isn't subject to control of a single US state government like your driver's license.

bawolff•about 20 hours ago

> I have a lot more issue with a $2.5K limit--that could be just one or two (intentionally or unintentionally) misreported payments. Or a paycheck hiccup. Or a layoff. Or a government error (because we all know how infallible DOGE was). Or a government shutdown. Or ...

In all of those situations, the child still has needs that need to be paid for.

rho138•about 20 hours ago

Then those responsibilities should fall on the state. If we all give a shit that kids are going without then lets solve the issue instead of ringing out our pearls.

actionfromafar•about 20 hours ago

But it's a small sum of money for potentially a large screwup with potential permanent side effects, like losing a cross border job. Of course, cross border anything is less and less likely these days.

potsandpans•about 7 hours ago

Your right, let's jail the parent until they pay.

mjd•about 20 hours ago

I accidentally read the comments on the post and got as far as this one:

“Honestly, since we're going towards socialism, we need to abolish child support. Women have the right to get an abortion because it is their body their choice. A man has to use his body …”

That was enough for me.

piltdownman•about 18 hours ago

I mean that's just reductio ad absurdum to be haughtily oblique about the whole issue.

Social programs =/= socialism. There are plenty of capitalist economies with robust social safety nets - most EU countries provide free healthcare, education, and forms of UBI in the forms of grants for artists and social welfare for those incapable of working.