Enforcing Child Support in a Foreign Country

While not often heard of, international child support cases are some of the most difficult for families to face. This is because some countries will not recognize U.S. child support orders. With approximately 150,000 international child support cases active at any given time, there are likely a few Arizona parents know the difficulty of having a child support order enforced overseas.

More than 10 years ago, the United States and dozens of other countries began negotiating a treaty to make it possible to enforce child support orders across international borders. However, in the United States, such orders are enforced on the state level, not federal. Because of this, each of the 50 states has to approve the treaty. So far, 28 states have done so.

While the treaty contains language stating that states reserve the right to reject foreign rulings that are not in line with domestic standards, some legislators feared that ratification would allow Islamic law to hold sway over U.S. law. The bill containing the treaty provisions was initially rejected, but in a special session that was subsequently held, it was approved. There are several federal incentives tied to the treaty approval, including funding as well as a child support payment processing system that will allow for automatic payroll deductions.

Family law matters are complicated enough on a domestic level, and many custodial parents know how difficult it is to collect needed child support payments. Payment amounts and arrangements may have to be modified throughout the years to ensure adequate support for the children.

Source: Fox News, "Legislators pass child support bill that had been nixed over Islamic law", Associated Press, May 18, 2015