The State Department makes loans to U.S. citizens and their immediate family members to repatriate or evacuate them from a foreign country or for emergency medical attention, food and other emergency needs. If a citizen has an outstanding unpaid loan, the State Department may refuse to issue a passport.
The Passport Denial Program, part of the Federal Offset Program, is designed to help states enforce child support delinquency. States report non-custodial parents who owe more than $2,500 in delinquent child support payments to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement or OCSE, which submits this information to the State Department. Until the passport applicant makes the delinquent child support payments, the State Department will deny the applicant a passport.
If the applicant is the subject of an outstanding local, state or federal warrant for a felony, or is under court order not to leave the United States, the State Department will deny the passport application. It will also deny the application if the applicant is under U.S. military-issued apprehension or restraint order, or if a court has declared the applicant incompetent.
If a foreign country has submitted an extradition or provisional arrest request to the United States for a citizen, the State Department will not issue him a passport. The State Department will also deny a passport to any applicant who the United States is seeking to extradite from a foreign country.
The State Department will deny a passport request to an applicant if the Secretary of State or her office has determined that the applicant is causing or will cause serious damage to the foreign policy or national security of the United States. This restriction is based on the 1981 Supreme Court ruling in Haig vs. Agee, which gave the State Department the right to deny a passport to former CIA agent Phillip Agee.
If an applicant has been previously denied a passport for any reason, the State Department may refuse to issue a passport until the applicant shows that the circumstances that caused the denial have changed. For example, if an applicant was previously denied a passport because of an arrest warrant, the applicant must show that the arrest warrant is no longer in effect before the State Department will issue the passport.
