My question involves child support in the State of: Illinois
Well, here we go...
I currently live in Texas, my ex and my 9 year old son live in Illinois. So this is an "interstate child support case"
I do have a relationship with my son.
I went through a rough time in my life, struggling with addiction, which led to inprisonment and felony convictions. My ex filed for child support(administrative order due to applying for government aid) in 2006. During this time, I was incarcerated. I had been for a few months. I was unaware of her filing, was never notified by anyone about a court date, given the opportunity to respond or try to defend myself. A default order was put against me resulting in a judgement to her amounting to $430/month. I had no income at that time, and had no income for a long time before that. First question is...if they had no income from me to go off of, how did they come up with this amount?
Now, I was released from jail around October of 2006. Still was not contacted or made aware of this order against me. After some time, I found out. I contacted the CSO on many different occasions, never got anywhere with them. So, I have had odd jobs on and off the past 4 years. They started garnishing my wages. When they send my employer the information, I always end up losing my job for one reason or another come next pay period. Who wants a loser deadbeat dad working at their business? I do not blame them. The current result of this order is $30,000+ in back pay, the regular $430 payment, a back pay payment, and a delinquency payment. About $700/ month. I am a felon, I don't make very much money when I find someone to hire me. I am not able to support myself on $300 per month left over after child support. Dont get me wrong, she deserves monetary support. But the state of Illinois is making it nearly impossible for me to make this situation right. Is there anything I can do to fix this? Given the facts that I was in prison before during and after the order, I was not notified about the court date, and I have not worked very much in the past 5 years. Any advice will be appreciated more than you know. Thank you all.

