Most of us are painfully aware of the new passport rules which have made it harder to obtain a passport, as well as making the wait to get the passport into one’s hands seemingly go on forever! What many people may not be aware of is how some of the new rules are doing wonders when it comes to collecting back child support from non-custodial parents.

The government denies passports, both new and renewed, to non-custodial parents who are more than $2,500 behind in their child support obligation. The parent has to come up with the cash and get current on his or her child support payments before the State Department will give the O.K. for them to travel abroad, or to re-enter the United States if the non-custodial parent is already out of the country and needs to renew his or her passport before traveling back to the states.

So far for 2007, the Untied States has been able to collect around, are you ready for this folks…22.5 million dollars from non-custodial parents who had fallen behind on their child support. Seem like a large number? While it is quite a large chunk of money, it is being warned that this is only an estimate, and a conservative one at that. Not all states report the payments to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, so not all of the money being received through the new passport program can be tracked. Once the state Department receives the money that is owed as child support, the passport is issued to the non-custodial parent, and the money is then forwarded on to the custodial parent of the child.

In cases where the custodial parent has required government assistance through programs such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in order to raise their child while not receiving child support, a portion of the recovered money is kept by the government for reimbursement, otherwise the money is passed on in its entirety to the custodial parent.

Some are still scratching their heads when it comes to repeat offenders, such as a professional Boxer, who had to pay a whopping $39,000 in back child support to the state of Nevada last year in order to receive his passport, only to have had to borrow $8,930 from his promoter this year to pay off the back child support he has already accrued since the large pay off, to replace his lost passport from 2006.

The amount of back child support collected is expected to jump yet again within the next two years, when new requirements will take effect for land and sea travelers as well. Perhaps by then some of the repeat offenders will have learned their lesson, and some of the would-be offenders will have gotten their acts together…maybe, possibly? We can dream right?

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