Weaponizing passports won’t help American kids

The State Department recently announced plans to coordinate with the Department of Health and Human Services “on an unprecedented scale” to revoke passports from Americans with child support debt. Revocations began May 8 for passport holders who owe $100,000 or more and will soon affect those who owe more than $2,500 in unpaid child support. A vast number of American parents, overwhelmingly fathers, are poised to lose a vital document that is used not only for travel but also as proof of identity and citizenship.

Predictably, some are celebrating this move as “cracking down on deadbeats.” The image of a man booking an overseas flight while choosing to evade his legal and moral responsibility to provide for his children offers a compelling pretext for expanded federal child support enforcement. We have been primed for this over decades of casting noncustodial fathers — particularly Black and low-income fathers — as absentee villains.

But a politically motivated caricature does not justify doubling down on a counterproductive and outdated approach to child support policy.

With a combined half-century of experience leading and studying efforts to ensure that fathers receive the supports they need to provide for the well-being of their children, we know that weaponizing passports won’t help American kids. To maximize child well-being, the child support system needs to shift away from functioning as an oppressive collection agency and serve and support the whole family as a family-building institution.

The truth is that most child support debt belongs to fathers who are unable, not unwilling, to pay. These fathers love their children and want the best for them yet struggle to meet their child support obligations. Many are carrying child support arrears that grew during unemployment or incarceration as they navigate barriers including........

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