PASSPORT
REVOCATION
Well, its been done. People are losing their
passport over failure to pay child support. It being done in Orange and San Diego
Counties, and Florida, New York and other states.
 Federal Law required that all 50 states and six
territories, in order to keep their Federal Welfare funding, were required to be online
with a national computer system effective October 1998. The first states have now begin to
send listing of delinquent child support payers to the State Department. The rest will
follow soon.
The Orange County DA has been online since the
fall 1998, and not only do they report to the state Department of Motor Vehicle, and
various state licensing bureau's and the IRS, but they now report to the state department
delinquent support payors.. What this means, is that those who owe back support will not
be able to leave the country legally if you owe more than $5000 in back child support.
 The Federal enabling statutes were tied into
the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, (28 USC 666) and effective in 1997 and now being enforced.
To find out what your particular state is
doing, visit the web site of the Office
of Child Support Enforcement,a division of the Department of Health Services.
The web site is informative as to what each state is doing as to passports,
driver's licenses, professional licenses, and the procedures each state has made to get
back your license. Even though the Feds designed the law, they are leaving how it is
implemented to each state, provided that they have some sort of procedure to revoke and
reinstate a license or passport.
It had been our experienced in years past, that
the DA would not release a professional or drivers license without an agreement to pay 25%
of what they believe are the arrears (including interest). It was assumed that the DA will
take the same position with respect to release of passports. In fact, if one looks at the
Office of Child Supports own guidelines as to what they suggested the states to do, that
was what they too had in mind. However, it has been announced publicly that at least in
Orange County, the District Attorney will not release a Passport so long as a person owed
more than $5000. If you owe $4999, you get your passport back.
As of the date of this update (January 31,
1999) there are still no forms to fill specifically asking the Court to reinstate your
passport, so the most common sense process has been to use the form Motion for
Reinstatement of License forms which the California Judicial Counsel developed for the
Professional and Drivers license. One trick that has been used by the District Attorneys
Office as a basis for opposing the granting of the Motion is to fail to state in a
declaration that you tried to get the DA to release the license via an Administrative
Review.
So, if you find yourself in this boat, and no
money to pay an attorney, when you fill out your forms be sure to state in the declaration
that you met with the DA (or tried to meet with the DA) before filing the Motion and were
unsuccessful in resolving the issues. Otherwise, you may find yourself going back to Court
and refilling the Motion again.
HOW DOES THIS IMPACT YOU
IF YOU OWE CHILD SUPPORT?
What this means, is that if you owe $10,000, you better be prepared to pay at least $2500
to get your license back or $5001 to get your passport back. If you do not have that kind
of money, hire an attorney (call us or e-mail us now) to get a payment plan established by
the court.
The DA's job is to get money from you, and they
usually are not going to bargain down the payment to what you want. However, you must meet
with them first before you file your Motion, so at least try to set up an Administrative
review before hiring an attorney. It should save you some money, and maybe you'll get
lucky. Keep notes of who you saw, the date you saw them and include this information in
your declaration in support of the Motion.
Most judges who hear the driver's license
motions will order the DA to release a license once three payments have been made on
 what
the court orders to be made on monthly payments. The question becomes how much should the
payment be. Generally the courts will order at a minimum three percent of the outstanding
balance to be paid monthly, or a minimum of $250, but this assumes that the current
support and arrears payment do not exceed fifty percent of the take home pay.
In fact, if you have been so lucky to have
received the new administrative wage assignments which began to be mailed and served in
October 1998, you will see that the new forms include a payment of three percent per month
of any arrears balance to be deducted automatically from your pay along with the current
child support. It has been stated publicly that if the two sums combined create a
hardship, the DA may lower the arrears payment to 1.7% of the outstanding arrears balance,
but even then this may not be enough. Remember, California charges 10% interest per year
on the arrears balance, so at 1.7% percent per month, you will cover the interest and 8%
of the balance per year.
The catch here, just like the drivers license
motion, is that you first must have an administrative review with the DA before you ask
the court to intercede. Also, at this time, because there are no forms available on
"how to file the Motion" it could be that each county may have some local
peculiar rule until such time as the Judicial Counsel (the people in Sacramento who set up
the court rules on filing procedures) come out with a form. I have received phone calls
from San Diego attorneys that stated that the Court there will reinstate a Passport on an
exparte application if an emergency exists, but such is not the case in Orange County.
Since there is no established procedure statewide, make sure that you speak to local
counsel before filing the Motion.
We do provide service to overseas clients
living in foreign countries. We realize  how difficult it is when you live overseas and we
can represent you during the legal process, saving you hours and expensive trips. This may
become even more important now if you are overseas, and are afraid to come back because
your passport has been revoked. The good news is that you can come home, but you won't be
able to leave.
Currently, because this is a new area of
enforcement, there is much confusion nationwide as to the legality of the process, and how
it effects the constitutional rights to travel and procedural due process rights of the
citizens since there is no speedy remedy to review the DA's action nor (at least locally)
any way short of lowering the balance below $5000 for one to get the passport back. If one
owes $10,000 and has a payment plan of $250 on the arrears, and does not miss a payment
for thirty days, their driver's license stays reinstated.
Such is not the case with the passport. The
office is receiving telephone calls nationwide on this issue, and it appears at least in
the larger Metropolitan states (New York, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois), no one else
knows what to do or how to fix this problem. Check our child support and custody site over
the next few weeks, and as things develop, I will try to post any new solutions.
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Family Law in California
Marsha Baucom holds degrees in Psychology, and Family Law and has been
practicing as a Licensed California Family Law Attorney representing
thousands of clients for over a decade.
She is respected by her peers, and clients that have enjoyed the
benefits of her legal representation.
This is experience you can count on.
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