El Salvador pursuing its deadbeat parents now living in U.S.

By Elizabeth Llorente

MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE

HACKENSACK, N.J. — The Salvadoran government is hunting down deadbeat parents who immigrated to the United States but failed to support the children they left behind.

Calling unpaid child support a problem that devastates families in the Central American nation, El Salvador recently became only the third country in the Americas — after Canada and Costa Rica — to sign a bilateral agreement with the United States aimed at collecting money from deadbeat parents.

Salvadoran officials hope deadbeat parents might face serious consequences, such as deportation.

They also are seizing property the parents own in their homeland and providing their names to immigration officials so they can be flagged if they try to re-enter El Salvador.

"They forgot their promises"

"They came here, they forgot their promises," said former New Jersey resident Esther Chavez, a Salvadoran immigrant who recently traveled to El Salvador to meet with women who were not getting child support.