Two Programs, One Principle: When Washington Uses Your Right to Travel as a Collection Tool

By Steven C. Fraser, Esq. | FL Bar No. 625825 | DC Bar No. 460026

Over the past two weeks I've run a series of posts across several of my sites — First Coast Family Lawyers, Fraser Law FL, and iBankruptcy — about two federal programs that take passports away from Americans who owe civil debts.

Those posts were written for specific audiences with specific fears. This one is different.

I want to step back and say something about what these two programs, taken together, actually reveal — about how the federal government approaches civil debt, about a constitutional tension that nobody talks about, and about what it means to practice at the intersection of family law, bankruptcy, and federal tax matters.

The Programs, Briefly

For context: there are exactly two federal statutory schemes that authorize the U.S. State Department to deny or revoke an American's passport based on a civil debt.

The first, enacted in 1996 as part of welfare reform, targets child support arrears. When a state child support enforcement agency certifies to the federal government that an obligor owes $2,500 or more in past-due support, the State Department is required to deny that person's passport application. An existing passport is not revoked. The fix runs through the state agency — not Washington.

The second, passed in 2015 as a revenue provision tucked into a federal highway bill, targets seriously delinquent federal tax debt — assessed tax liability, including penalties and interest, that exceeds approximately $62,000 to $65,000. When the IRS certifies a taxpayer to the State Department under 26 U.S.C. § 7345, the consequences are more severe: not just denial of new applications, but revocation of a passport the person already holds.

Different thresholds. Different agencies. Different pipelines. But the same fundamental mechanism: the federal government restricts your ability to travel internationally as a means of pressuring you to satisfy a civil financial obligation.

What They Have in Common

Both programs share several features that I think deserve more attention than they receive.

They are invisible until they detonate. There is no public registry, no warning system, no dashboard where a person can check their status. Most people find out at the passport counter, or when a denial letter arrives, or — in the IRS version — when a revocation notice shows up alongside a request to surrender the document. By then, whatever upcoming trip triggered the application is usually already in jeopardy.

The pipeline doesn't move fast in either direction. Getting certified into these programs takes bureaucratic time. Getting certified out takes bureaucratic time. Even after you've resolved the underlying issue — fully paid, entered a qualifying arrangement, whatever your path — the clearance process at the federal level takes two to six weeks. You cannot pay your way out the morning of your flight. The system has no emergency lane for good-faith resolution.

Both target working people who travel. I want to be precise here. I'm not suggesting the programs are unjust — people who owe child support and people who owe federal taxes are obligated to pay, full stop. But the mechanism of enforcement — restricting international travel — lands hardest on the people most likely to have international professional obligations. The executive whose employer sends her overseas. The contractor whose clients are in Europe. The father who works on a cruise ship. These are not the people who can most easily absorb a passport restriction. They are among the people who most immediately and tangibly suffer one.

The Constitutional Tension Nobody Discusses

Courts have consistently held that international travel is not a fundamental constitutional right. The leading case is Haig v. Agee, decided by the Supreme Court in 1981, which upheld the Secretary of State's authority to revoke a passport in the context of national security. The rational-basis standard applied there — and by extension to these civil debt programs — is extremely deferential. The government wins as long as there's any conceivable rational basis for the policy.

I don't quarrel with that doctrinal outcome. But I think the category of analysis deserves scrutiny.

The right to reenter the United States — to come home — is constitutionally protected. The right to travel freely between states is constitutionally protected. But the right to leave? To hold a travel document? Those have been placed in a different constitutional box, one that gives Congress considerable latitude to attach conditions.

What we have, then, is a situation where your right to cross an international border can be conditioned on satisfying a civil debt, but your right to cross a state line cannot. Whether that asymmetry reflects a principled distinction or simply a doctrinal accident of twentieth-century case law is a question worth asking. The courts haven't felt compelled to revisit it. Legislation hasn't prompted them to. But as these programs mature and potentially expand to other categories of civil obligation — and there is no obvious principled reason why they would stop at child support and income taxes — the question may eventually become unavoidable.

What It Means to Practice at the Intersection

Here is the practical observation that I think matters most for anyone advising clients.

Most family law attorneys know the child support program well. Most tax attorneys know the IRS program well. Very few attorneys know both well enough to advise a client who is navigating both at the same time — and that client exists. Someone who has accumulated both child support arrears and significant federal tax debt, who is considering bankruptcy, and who needs to travel for work is not a hypothetical. I have represented people in exactly that position.

The bankruptcy automatic stay operates differently against child support enforcement than it does against IRS collection. An installment agreement with the IRS can suspend a passport certification; nothing equivalent exists in the child support system, where Florida's Department of Revenue typically requires full satisfaction before withdrawing certification. A Chapter 13 plan that addresses both obligations must be structured to account for those differences, and the passport implications of the plan's timeline need to be part of the client conversation from the beginning.

That's the kind of cross-practice complexity that falls through the cracks when a client's legal situation is divided among attorneys who only see their corner of it.

The Window That Matters Most

If there is a single practical takeaway from everything I've written in this series, it's this: both programs reward clients who act before certification, not after.

The window between "debt accumulating" and "IRS or DOR certification" is the leverage window. That's when the full range of options is available. That's when the client's negotiating position is strongest. That's when the bureaucratic clock hasn't started running against the urgency of a trip that's already booked.

After certification, the options narrow. The clock runs regardless of how sincere or how rapid the resolution effort. Every week of delay between resolution and clearance is a week the client is living with a revoked or denied passport.

I've watched clients spend months trying to handle these situations themselves — calling the IRS directly, making payments that didn't change their account status, waiting to see whether the problem would resolve on its own. It does not resolve on its own. And the clients who called on day one had better outcomes, more options, and lower balances than the ones who called six months later.

That's not a pitch. It's just what I've observed across twenty-eight years of practice.

What Comes Next

Congress passed both of these programs as fiscal tools — child support in the welfare reform context of 1996, tax debt almost as an afterthought in a 2015 highway bill. Neither received significant debate about the civil liberties dimensions of using travel restriction as a collection mechanism.

The infrastructure is built. The precedent is established. The constitutional framework is permissive. If Congress wanted to extend passport denial to, say, defaulted federal student loans, or unpaid civil judgments in favor of the federal government, the doctrinal pathway already exists.

Whether it should is a different question. One I'll leave for another post.

Steven C. Fraser has practiced law in Florida and the District of Columbia since 1998. His practice spans bankruptcy, family law, federal tax matters, consumer protection, criminal defense, executive employment, estate planning, and certified mediation across all 20 Florida circuits and DC Superior Court.

If you recognized your situation in any of this series — child support arrears, federal tax debt, or both — the conversation you need is specific to your facts. I'm available.

📞 Toll-Free 877-862-7188 · North FL 904-600-0838 · DC 202-417-8128 📅 Schedule a Consultation 📧 mail@fraserlawfl.com

FL Bar No. 625825 | DC Bar No. 460026