New Column: Passport Rules Unfair to Child Support Debtors
My new co-authored column, Passport Rules Unfair to Child Support Debtors (San Antonio Express-News, 9/8/07), criticizes the new child support/passport rules which are so overwhelmingly popular among the editorial boards of our nation’s newspapers. The column is a response to the Express-News’ recent editorial “Federal law catching up with deadbeat parents” (8/23/07). I commend the paper for its willingness to publish such criticism.
The column, co-authored with family law attorney Jeff Leving, appears below. To write a Letter to the Editor regarding Passport Rules Unfair to Child Support Debtors (9/8/07), write to letters@express-news.net.
Thanks to child support expert Jane Spies of the National Family Justice Association for some important last-minute help with an aspect of the article. Jane discusses problems with the child support system in her recent article The Myth of the Successful Child Support System.
Passport Rules Unfair to Child Support Debtors
By Jeffery M. Leving and Glenn Sacks
San Antonio Express-News (9/8/07)
The San Antonio Express-News’ recent editorial “Federal law catching up with deadbeat parents” (8/23/07) presents a one-sided view of child support debtors. The editorial commends new passport policies which deny passports to parents who have fallen $2,500 behind on child support. The Express-News apparently believes that most child support debtors are willfully refusing to meet their support obligations, and asserts that many debtors seek to “hurt their ex-spouses by not paying child support.”
There are child support debtors who match the Express-News’ description, but they are very much the minority. Much has been said about a few of the large payments the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement says the program has collected, particularly the $311,491 paid by a father who was marooned in Hong Kong without a passport. Yet, according to the federal OCSE’s own data, such parents are in no way representative of the average “deadbeat.”
OCSE data shows that two-thirds of those behind on child support nationwide earned poverty-level wages; less than four percent of the national child support debt is owed by those earning $40,000 or more a year.
A look at Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s current “Texas Top 10 Most Wanted Child Support Evaders” poster on the AG’s website confirms this. There’s not one educated parent on the list, which instead contains six general/construction laborers, a landscaper, a salesman, and two tradesmen.
Child support obligors often fall behind because the child support system is mulishly impervious to the economic realities working people face, such as layoffs, wage cuts, unemployment, and work-related injuries. According to the Urban Institute, less than one in 20 non-custodial parents who suffers a substantial drop in income is able to get courts to reduce his or her child support payments.
Abbott’s office backhandedly acknowledges the difficulties men in these situations face, advising obligors, “It is best to get a lawyer, if you can afford one, to handle your attempt to change the amount of child support you owe.” How many unemployed blue-collar workers can afford to hire an attorney?
Another reason the passport rules are a bad idea is that the information being employed by the OCSE is often faulty. Child support enforcement agencies—including Abbott’s office—are notorious for their incessant “computer” errors which lead to the harassment and persecution of innocent citizens. Abbott’s office’s role in the Joe Martin case, as documented by the Des Moines Register, provides a good example.
Martin is disabled and childless, but was nonetheless targeted by the Texas Attorney General’s office for a phantom $3,500 child-support debt. According to the Register, the 47-year-old Iowan received numerous threatening letters which warned him that he could lose his driver’s license, have his bank account seized, and be publicly humiliated by being pictured on a “Most Wanted” poster. It was a case of mistaken identity–Abbott had the wrong Joe Martin–but it was only straightened out after media attention and a lot of heartache.
The passport rules also constitute a significant civil liberties violation. Given the errors in the child support system, as well as its often unreasonable demands and its inflexibility, the OCSE is effectively stripping many innocent citizens of their right to travel. In cases where an American’s passport has been lost while abroad, it means that he or she will be marooned in a foreign country, probably broke and possibly in danger. (more…)
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Stumble It!
September 10th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I managed to get the following letter to the editor published on this issue:
“Your editorial on collecting child support through passport revocation claims that “states have collected $22.5 million through the program so far this year.” But I wonder: what money didn’t get paid under this new law?
At one time I owed child support after an extended period of unemployment and was fortunate enough to land a well-paying job overseas. I contacted the child support office to determine how much I owed, then paid it off from the money I earned overseas. Under current passport law, that money would not have been paid.
It’s my observation that the amount of child support owed increases by the billions every year. Perhaps it’s time we recognize the “build a bigger jail” approach is not working and begin to explore more humane and more effective alternatives. “
September 10th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Glenn, Excellent article. BTW – you know something that always goes unmentioned in the debate about passports. Assume this happens to a non-custodial parent who is overly burdened with child support, falls behind in support payments and then can’t obtain a passport. The passport law indirectly provides the custodial parent with increased power in a hidden way. They can leave the country with the child and the non-custodial parent can not follow them to remain a part of the child’s life.
Interesting twist.
September 10th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
When you consider the new law that requires U.S. citizens to have passports just to go to Canada and Mexico this really looks spooky. What other countries have refused to allow impoverished citizens to leave? Maybe in a few years some foreign leader will be saying to the President of the United States, “Ms. Clinton, tear down this wall.”
September 11th, 2007 at 5:24 am
This is yet another example of how Nanny Government under the guise of Child Support Enforcement is eroding Freedom. Like a bunch of Sheep our Populace refuse to say anything about it. Why not just turn Fathers into Slaves? And stop with the pretense of Due Process all together. This is what the FemNags really want. Their intent was to destroy Marriage once and for all. Let us do so. It is now officially a SCAM.