Non-Resident Father and American Court ordered Child Support

[donluis007]

I am an American citizen living in the Caribean for the last 10 years, subsequently I have a child, the mother and I are not married, never were and never will be.

My child has the great privilege to inherit American citizenship from me, I have yet to register her but would like to as soon as possible, in case one day something happens to me.

I do support my child and have a binding legal support agreement (not a court order, but court approved) with the mother.

I do have some concern that if the mother somehow manages to acquire a US visa that she may depart with the child to the states, legally there is little here that I could really do to impide her departure therefore my concern is if she manages to arrive to US shores can she get a child support judgment against me.

My concern is all the outrageous judgments I have heard of, I live and work here in the Caribean and presently I have my wife and three children to support. Neither wages nor cost of living is equal to what it would be in the US.

So I seek sound legal advice if my fears are justified or I should go ahead with my declaration of my child or am I better off to wait until she is 18.

Can I be ordered by a US court to pay US child Support?

She can try to get support even now but declaring the citizenship will make it that much easier.

But US courts normally have guidelines for child support that do not permit outrageous obligations as you seem to fear.

[JuJuMomUSA]

I am in a similar situation as you, and I do have an interjurisdictional court order in place. I live in the USA, and my son's father lives in Canada.

I believe the support order is based on the non-custodial parent's income, even if the exchange rate makes it a lousy payment for the person receiving it (as in my case).

There is something called "reciprocity" between countries, which basically means in layman's terms that certain countries have agreed to work together in situations like these regarding child support and custody matters, etc.

With my situation, I didn't have to appear to the court in Canada, and USA represented me basically on paper with the facts of the case. I believe the jurisdiction of the court will generally be the non-custodial parent's country of residence.

My case was pretty straightforward, simple child support, as DNA testing was already complete and we didn't have any custody issues, and we were never married. I predict that eventually, we will have some custody/visitation issues, but right now, there's nothing in place, and I haven't heard from him in over 2 years.