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Q. WHERE DO I GO TO GET HELP IN TRYING TO ENFORCE A CHILD SUPPORT OBLIGATION INVOLVING A RESIDENT OF THE U.S. AND A RESIDENT OF A FOREIGN COUNTRY?
A. The first step for U.S. residents seeking international child support enforcement is to contact your local child support office . These offices are generally known as the state IV-D Agency, for Title IV-D of the 1975 Social Security Act which established the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s U.S Federal Child Support Enforcement program. Although addresses, phone numbers and web pages for state child support agencies are available here, contact information for state agencies changes regularly. You may wish to contact your state child support enforcement office via the Internet or check the address feature of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE)'s Online Interstate Resource Guide . If you do not have access to the Internet at home or at work contact your local public library.
Residents of other nations should contact family maintenance officials in their nations for information and other assistance and review our discussion about enforcing a foreign child support order in the United States.
The U.S. Child Support Enforcement Program is a Federal/State/local partnership. Each State in the United States runs a child support program, either in the human services department, department of revenue, or district attorneys office, often with the help of prosecuting attorneys, other law enforcement agencies, and officials of family or domestic relations courts. U.S. local child support offices can provide information about Federal international support agreements and state-level arrangements with foreign countries, as well as about the increasing variety of aggressive techniques now available to pursue enforcement in the U.S. and abroad, including garnishment of wages and federal income tax refunds, revocation of licenses, direct contact with foreign employers, criminal enforcement proceedings, etc.
