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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. State Department will begin revoking the U.S. passports of thousands of parents who owe a significant amount of unpaid child support.
The department told The Associated Press on Thursday that the revocations would begin Friday and be focused on those who owe $100,000 or more.
That would apply to about 2,700 American passport holders, according to figures supplied to the State Department by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The revocation program, plans for which were first reported by the AP in February, soon will be greatly expanded to cover parents who owe more than $2,500 in unpaid child support — the threshold set by a little-enforced 1996 law, the State Department said.
Until this week, only those who applied to renew their passports were subject to the penalty.
“We are expanding a commonsense practice that has been proven effective at getting those who owe child support to pay their debt,” Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said. »
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