An American Child Abroad

[Note … we wrote this article in the summer of 2017. OCSE published an edited version of the story in the January 2018 Support Report, page 6. Read my January 2019 blog update for status of cases like the one below.]

Wally McClure, (now former) Director, Washington State Division of Child Support, and Terry and Cecelia McClure, citizens on a mission.

Wally: A few months ago, I got an email from my brother and sister-in-law who were in the Philippines on a mission for their church. While delivering a wheel chair to a client in the town of Castillejos, they met a woman and her daughter. They hoped I might connect this family to child support services. I’m sharing this story because I don’t think we in the child support world have a good way to address the needs of thousands of U.S. citizens that happen to be children who live in another country. I’ve changed the names of their client, the mom, and the child.

Terry and Cecelia: We assessed and distributed wheelchairs as part of an 18-month, humanitarian service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. One of our clients was Edward, a 53-year-old disabled man. While we were assembling Edward’s new RoughRider wheelchair, Edward’s sister, Jasmine, came over with her daughter Emily.

Cecelia started chatting with Jasmine. As we visited with her, Jasmine asked if we can help with schooling for Emily. Cecelia asks her for more information about Emily: How old is she? Where did she get her red hair and freckles?

“She has an American father,” Jasmine answered.

Emily seems nice but is very shy. Her fair skin and red hair have led to belittling and teasing at school. Cecelia tells her that in the United States there are movie stars with red hair and freckles. It turns out Emily’s dad was an American serviceman in Korea. Emily’s mom was working in Korea in a factory. They met and were married in the U.S. embassy in Korea in 2004. About a year later Emily was born and then about 3 years later Emily’s father went back to the United States and they were unable to accompany him. Initially Jasmine stayed in contact with her husband but eventually he changed his phone number and address. The Philippines is 80 percent Catholic and there is no divorce in the Philippines so as far as Emily’s mom knows, they are still married.

As Cecelia asks questions, Emily’s mom goes into their house and brings out photocopies of their marriage certificate, a copy of the father’s military ID, a data sheet with his Social Security number on it, a power of attorney, and a letter from Emily’s father to the military claiming her to be his daughter for the application for a U.S. passport, which Emily received.

Since Terry’s brother, Wally, works in the child support system, we felt we might have a way to help. Of all the people Jasmine could have asked for help, there we were, knowing that this program existed and might be accessible to her daughter. When they were abandoned, Jasmine and Emily moved in with Jasmine’s family. Jasmine had tried to get help through the American Embassy, but they told her they had so many paternity cases that she would never get money. Although Jasmine’s English is very good, there may have been a misunderstanding; Emily’s paternity is not in question. Jasmine and Emily were a special case: Emily has a U.S. passport, her parents were married, and Jasmine had all kinds of documentation.

Emily is 12 now and her mom wants to send her to private high school because she says the public schools aren’t good, but the cost of a private school, and the required uniform, is more than Jasmine makes. The father isn’t sending any money. So Cecelia took photos of all the documents with her phone and told Jasmine she’d talk to a friend in the United States who may be able to help us. Jasmine and Emily don’t have email but we worked with a local municipal employee, Evelyn, a supervisor in the Persons with Disabilities office. Evelyn was kind enough to allow us to email Jasmine at Evelyn’s address. She printed out the email we sent and delivered it. School for Emily at the private school, including uniforms and books is about $500 a year. We emailed Wally. He said they might be able to help and put us in contact with the manager of the Special Collections Unit in his office.

Wally: I asked our manager for the Special Collections Unit and our Intergovernmental Manager to take a look at this unusual circumstance and see what we could do to get a case started. Since we didn’t know where the father was, they decided to first open a Locate Only case. Of course, before we could even open a case, we would need an application for services, so Special Collections sent the application via secure email to Terry and Cecilia, along with an authorization to disclose confidential information for Jasmine to sign so our office could work with Terry and Cecelia as intermediaries.

Terry and Cecelia: Washington Child Support sent us 14 pages of forms and instructions. We returned to Castillejos again (five hours each way) and met with Emily’s mom to fill out the forms as best we could. Terry’s brother, Wally, thought the child support program could trace her dad.

We sat down with Emily’s mom, explained the forms, and filled them all out as best we could. Emily and Jasmine’s situation does not fit the forms very well so the forms were mostly blank because we didn’t know what to do with them. We made copies of all the forms plus some documents the mom had. We left one copy with her and cautioned her that she should not count on receiving money. We emailed the completed forms to the Washington Child Support office, along with copies of the documents the mom had, including the father’s birth certificate, his social security card, their marriage certificate, and Emily’s birth certificate. We later checked with Carol and she said they were opening a case for Emily.

Three weeks later they thought they had located her dad and needed more forms filled out to request assistance from the state where he resides. We drove to Castillejos again. The Washington Special Collections Manager was very helpful and reassuring. She really needed just some of the information and real signatures. We’re able to get those. Two weeks later we left the Philippines for home in Washington State grateful that our state provided the resources to change the life of one child in need of a better chance.

Wally: Once we had all the documents we opened an interstate case with New Jersey, where the father lived and worked. Staff in the New Jersey child support office were super helpful. There was no support order so they had to go to court to establish. The first time through, the court ruled that Washington didn’t have standing to refer the case but changed the ruling on reconsideration and established an order.

There are still details to iron out, like getting our payment card to work in the Philippines, but dad has a good work history and makes a decent living, so I’m pretty confident things will work out for Emily.

I’m sharing all this for two reasons. First, to pin a virtual medal on the chests of my brother and sister-in-law for putting two and two and two and two together and giving me a shout. And also virtual medals to the Washington DCS teams and the New Jersey staff and the judge who all found a way to say “yes” instead of defaulting to “no”. But second, to call attention to a problem. Emily was lucky twice. Once that mom had all those documents and twice by running into Terry and Cecelia. There are a lot of kids that aren’t so lucky. There really isn’t a procedure to apply for services if you don’t know what state to start in and you live in another country. The embassy had turned them away.

Perhaps our partners in OCSE could start a conversation with the State Department to work out a procedure. Maybe it takes legislation. Whatever it takes, I believe my brother and his wife discovered a void in our remarkable program that leaves some huge, uncounted number of American children without support across the globe.

[Jump over to the Blog update for good news on the improvements coming as a result of Emily’s story, Terry and Cecelia’s actions, and OCSE and the State Department’s willingness to address a problem].