Child Sex Offenders To Be Identified on US Passports

Registered child sex offenders in the United States will be issued a new passport, which will be marked to indicate their conviction and past crimes. Reports claimed the State Department said Thursday, in order to comply with the International Megan’s Law passed last year, the passports of registered child molesters will be revoked. The offenders will be required to apply for a new passport, which would be marked with a “unique identifier.”

According to the New York Times, the International Megan’s Law is named after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old girl from New Jersey who was raped and murdered in 1994 by her neighbor. This law aims at curbing child exploitation and sex tourism. Kanka’s case inspired an array of laws that allow residents to be notified when a sex offender moves into their community or neighborhood. It also led to the creation of several state sex offender registries.

The Department of State said the child sex offenders will be issued a passport with a notice printed inside its back cover, which would read, “The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212b(c)(l).”

The registered offenders will no longer be issued smaller travel documents known as passport cards because the endorsements cannot be printed on them, the department said in a statement posted to its travel.state.gov website.

According to Eyewitness News, the State Department that issues passports will start notifying those affected as soon as it receives the names of the convicts from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security, which is the agency responsible for identifying child sex offenders. It is also the only agency, which can add or remove someone from the crime list. According to the report, the State Department also said the language in the passports will neither prevent offenders from traveling nor will it affect the validity of their passports.

A CNN report quoted a State Department official as saying the offenders can continue to travel on their existing passports till the time the State Department notifies them their documents have been cancelled.

This move comes after Australia made a decision to revoke the passports of convicted pedophiles to avert them from travelling for sex tourism.

“This important legislation allows governments, in the U.S. and around the globe, to know when convicted pedophiles on sex-offender registries are traveling to other countries,” said the law’s author, Representative Chris Smith in February 2017, the Express Newsline reported.

However, all travelers are subject to entry laws, rules and requirements of countries they wish to visit. Many nations prohibit or put stringent restrictions on offenders, which would make travel difficult for these unique identifier passport holders.

According to the Express Newsline, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the agency was working on additional inspecting procedures to bring out the names of the offenders on a priority basis.