Passports, Children and Family Law

Since we now need a passport for traveling even to Canada, this topic might be of a bit more importance. I had not thought much about it till I saw The Children's Passport Issuance Alert Program at The Georgia Family Law Blog. This post examines the State Department's program for notifying a parent when someone applies for a passport in the name of a minor child.

Indiana law also has a passport notice requirement at IC 31-17-2-24 (PDF format). There seems to be no penalty in the statute for not complying with the statute.

Which leads me to think of a nasty scenario. The scenario goes like this: the non-custodial parent does not sign up with the State Department for getting notice of a passport application for the child and the custodial parent does not give notice of obtaining a passport and then child turns up in another country. Which then leads to a very nasty can of worms being opened up.