Child Support Enforcement - Sarpy County Nebraska

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Reciprocity/ International Law & Related
I. Overview
42-721 Attorney General; powers.
. . .
(b) The Attorney General may determine that a foreign country or political subdivision has
established a reciprocal arrangement for child
support with this state and take appropriate action
for notification of the determination.
Source: Laws 1993, LB 500, § 21; Laws 2003, LB
148, § 61.
If you work child support long enough you
will encounter cases with parents and minor
children living in and being citizens of foreign
countries. When the NCP resides in your
jurisdiction it may fall to your court to either
establish an order of paternity and/or order for
support, or to register a foreign support order for purposes of enforcement or modification. The
general methods of doing so remain the same when dealing with foreign parties, but you will
encounter all sorts of additional ―issues‖, including document interpretation, language barriers,
time zone issues (email does wonders in that regard), differing methods of obtaining service of
process, currency conversion issues and generalized issues relating to differing levels of social
services found in other countries. For example, in much of Europe single parents automatically
qualify for government cash benefits, which allows a single parent not to have to work. Free
universal health insurance is also the norm in many other nations (lucky them!).
Nebraska has signed reciprocity agreements for the establishment and enforcement of
child support orders with the following nations: Australia, Canada (the provinces of Alberta,
British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Newfoundland/Labrador,
Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Yukon), the Czech
Republic, El Salvador, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, portions of Mexico (27 individual
states), The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, Scotland,
Switzerland , The United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Wales) and Yap. (Also see this
State Dept. Link; note that it admits it may be out-of-date.) Working international support cases
with countries not on this list is also possible if no one objects and you obtain the cooperation of
the other nation‘s child support system.
An extremely useful 77 page guide for workers/attorneys who share cases with Canada
may be found at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/pol/IM/2011/im-11-01a.pdf In addition,
the Canadian Department of Justice has a useful link describing their child support laws, written
in layman‘s terminology: http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fcy-fea/sup-pen/index.html
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