Passport Update: What’s In Store for 2008

By PHK

I’m not good at crystal ball gazing but it seems to me that although the State Department managed to get its act together enough to play passport issuance catch-up over the past six months to the point where the wait-time is reportedly four to six weeks for regular processing and no more than three weeks for expedited processing, whether this will last is something else again. Why it took Congressional pressure and media criticism to force State to clean up the mess last summer is beyond me – but nevertheless, the outside pressure is clearly what made the difference.

State’s new Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy, Moira Hardy, the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, and everyone else involved should thank their lucky stars this holiday season that Congress put its foot down and told the administration and its recalcitrant Department of Homeland Security to postpone the full implementation of the Western Hemisphere Initiative (WHTI) until June 1, 2009 or later - like it or not. At least someone has some common sense.

When the WHTI is fully implemented everyone who crosses the US borders by land or sea as well as air will be required to have a valid passport or a “smart card.” This could quadruple the number of American passport holders and yet again inundate the passport agencies unless the State Department is prepared to ramp up its passport issuing office capacity substantially yet again between now and then.

Why DHS’ continued urging that this final piece of the law be implemented sooner rather than later is beyond me. Exactly how many of the 9/11 hijackers, for instance, came into the country sans passport and across a land or sea border from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or the Caribbean? Not one. If I remember correctly they entered on questionable student visas issued by private American flight schools where they learned to take-off but not land. Who exactly monitored that rather bizarre behavior – where was the FBI when we needed them? I’m also not convinced that a piece of paper makes a difference in the overall scheme of things. Then again, it’s not exactly as if we don’t have our home-grown terrorists either – think Oklahoma City bombing. What does seem to make a difference, however, is strong intelligence work and alert border officials. That’s where I’d put my money if I lived in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW.

I suppose, however, if a would-be terrorist happened to cross the US border by foot sans passport, it would make DHS look bad. Frankly, I think this passport-by-land requirement is foremost nonsense and essentially a bureaucratic CYA game – but that comes from my cynical nature having worked for the U.S. government for 27 plus years and having experienced more than my share of terrorist alerts, scares and disasters overseas.

The passport issuance postponement requirement was a part of the omnibus appropriations bill that emerged from Congress in December. I understand that the president, who signed the bill December 26, indicated he would not oppose the postponement’s inclusion. People should thank Representative Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) for sponsoring the legislation requiring the delay.

Ghee thanks, Michael, that's really helpful

DHS is not the part of the bureaucracy that is charged with issuing passports so why should it care whether or not the State Department can handle the projected increased load. At the same time DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared his objections to the passport requirement delay, he also said that beginning January 31, 2008, DHS “plans to implement an interim policy of not accepting oral declarations of citizenship as the sole means of entering the country by land or sea. He went on to say that U.S. and Canadian citizens 19 years and older will instead need to present a passport, or, alternatively, a government-issued photo ID plus proof of citizenship, such as a driver’s license and birth or naturalization certificate. . .” Children ages 18 and under will only be required to present proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate. “Passports and trusted traveler program cards – NEXUS, SENTRI and FAST – will continue to be accepted for cross-border travel.” As far as I know, this doesn’t change much, if anything, of what is already being required or that this interim requirement is postponed. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

This 18 month passport-free-travel extension – which prohibits implementation before June 1, 2009 according to Eleanor Stables at CQ Today – Homeland Security on December 18, 2007 should help State management – for the first time in years under a competent leader – get its act together enough to ramp up for the expected deluge when the more stringent requirement does come into force. Since passport processing pays for itself, it’s not exactly as if State should have a funding problem - but meeting a surge of demand does require planning ahead.

Bureaucratic glitch potential on the horizon

In the meantime, there are a couple of potential bureaucratic glitches in the passport issuance process that could cloud the horizon this coming year. (Eric thanks for the tip.) First, in good Republican contract-everything-out mode, almost all of the passport issuance process has been contracted out to the private sector. Stanley Inc., the company which does almost everything except for opening the initial application envelope, extracting the fees and registering checks (that’s done by Citibank under a US Treasury contract) and adjudicating the actual applications (done by State Department Consular Officers), is being re-bid. If the contract goes to a new company expect delays and mistakes as a part of the learning process as happened last year when Citibank took over the financial portion of the process from a competitor that had held that contract for years.

The second possible glitch is that State is opening yet another new passport printing facility sometime this spring also to be run by Stanley, Inc. This time in Tucson, Arizona. Don’t ask why – makes no sense to me. This new facility – along with the one which opened in Hope Springs, Arkansas last year – fragments the issuance process even further. One has to wonder why the Department couldn’t have just updated the equipment at the already existing passport offices especially those in Charleston and New Hampshire where most mail-in requests are handled. From my perspective, these new printing facilities smell of political pay-offs but to whom is beyond me. They make no sense administratively even in this era of rapid technological interchange of data. As people saw last year, it took time for the plant in Hope Springs to get up to speed - so expect problems from Tucson as well.

Why someone from New Mexico, for instance, has to mail a renewal application to Los Angeles where their check is extracted and the application logged in by Citibank, then wait for the application and supporting documents to be mailed to either New Hampshire, if they’re lucky, or Charleston, if they’re not, for processing and adjudication, then if approved, that data transmitted to Tucson or Hope Springs for printing of the actual new passport. Meanwhile, the supporting documents are returned to the applicant by mail from New Hampshire or Charleston and the new passport is mailed to the applicant from Hope Springs or Tucson. In my view, something is wrong with this picture. It seems as if it would be both more costly and a waste of time.

Meanwhile, stay tuned and keep us informed. Your experiences are crucial to assisting others as we all learned last year. We will continue to follow and post on the passport issuing issue as changes occur. And, if need be, don’t forget to check reader comments on this and previous posts and our passport tips page (which includes basic information for US passport seekers on a variety of topics) for additional information.

Comments

[Consul-At-Arms]

Wow. You did a terrific job as an information clearing-house this past summer and undoubtedly helped a lot of frustrated passport applicants.

This past summer quite a few experienced consular officers, plus a "voluntold" cadre of newly-minted adjudicators, put in long hours all over the country pitching in to get a handle on the passport surge. They've all gone home or onward to their normal assignments, but what happened during those summer months while the passport task force was toiling away was that the Consular bureau was increasing its capacity, both by opening new ever-larger passport printing facilities (a second of which will be coming online in Arizona) as well as bootstrapping its processing and adjudicator staff to levels capable of handling the increased demand.

What normally happens when a contract changes hands is the new contractor tries to hire as many of the experienced contract staff as are willing to stay on. Having been a longtime government contractor prior to becoming a "direct hire," I can attest to this personally. In fact, I almost always got a noticeable salary "bump" upwards when hired by a gaining company.

As for who does what, passport adjudication at domestic passport offices is accomplished by civil service adjudicators (i.e., "GS" employees), not consular officers. They are all employees of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), but they aren't FSOs (which consular officers assuredly are). The exception was during the past year when many FSOs took part in the passport task force.

One of the positive results from the passport task force was that there was considerable "cross-fertilization" between the civil service/domestic adjudicators and the consular officers (or FSOs with current consular commissions) whose passport adjudication experience was almost wholly overseas. It's my understanding that a number of domestic passport office assignments will be added to consular bid lists in order to institutionalize this, and that some overseas excursion tours will be established for civil service adjudicators in order to make this cross-flow work in both directions. This was a really good thing and should be encouraged.

Updating the equipment at existing passport offices and printing plants wouldn't have come close to providing the increased printing capabilities that these entire new plants will provide. For instance, if you already lease a couple-three floors of a downtown office building for a regional passport office (think L.A., Boston, New York, &tc.), acquiring additional floors in a rented-to-capacity office building is a non-trivial task. I suppose you could always exercise eminent domain however.

There are several potential bottlenecks in the process. One is at the intake. The current contractor has apparently dealt with problems there. Another is at adjudication. Somebody with a practical and professional knowledge of U.S. nationality laws and passport procedures has to get their eyeballs on the physical documents and application forms. And that's something that it would be unwise, to say the least, to contract out. The last is in production. By the time a passport application is adjudicated by either a consular officer or a civil service adjudicator, the passport photograph and the necessary information are already digitized; they can be (and are) transmitted electronically to the printing facilities, whether those are onsite at the individual passport offices or in another state entirely. So having passports printed and mailed from either Arkansas or Arizona doesn't represent any sort of inefficiency; quite the opposite in fact.

I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007/12/re-passport-update-whats-in-store-for.html

[PHK]

Consul-at-Arms: Thanks for your inside view of the passport situation and correction on who adjudicates passports domestically(GS vs FS). Most appreciated.

I think it's an excellent idea for FS Consular Officers to serve a tour at a regional agency and vice versa. I encouraged GS employees working for me to serve in excursion positions overseas - both GS and FS benefitted.

I guess I'm not as optimistic as you are as to the short term future of passport processing by the USG except that Congress bailed State out once again and that Kennedy is probably the only person around who could make State function administratively. He certainly was instrumental in dealing effectively with last summer's backlog. (Remember both PLS and I know the Department rather well and from the inside too.) Unfortunately, I have never seen State function administratively smoothly.

Frankly, I see no reason that the printing facilities could not have been upgraded at the two major mail-in centers particularly New Hampshire - please note that I did not say agencies like DC, NYC, or San Francisco where rent/space is a premium although I'll bet Colorado could have been increased - and I continue to see no reason for opening new plants in Arizona or Arkansas except for political reasons. Regardless of new technology, mailing documents three different times and from three different places internally adds glitches that need not be there. Then they just add more places that need CA supervision.

Reading between the lines in your comment, it sounds to me as if a major long term glitch could be in number of adjudicators available particularly beginning summer 2009. If one is looking at a quadruple increase (guestimate)does State have 1) permission to add that many more positions; and 2) agreement to pay for them? You did not mention that last summer retired FSOs with consular experience were also being recruited for short term hire as well as FSOs and others being pressed into service temporarily. Will State have the additional staff to handle the surge expected summer 2009?

I agree with you that new contractors often hire trained staff from whomever had the contract before - but regardless, this didn't seem to deal with the Citibank problem last spring. And I've never seen a change in contractors proceed seamlessly (and I too dealt with contractors and changing contractors during my FS career.)

Yes, WV did function as a clearing house for information sharing during the crisis last spring and summer. I'm surprised you hadn't seen our site at the time. Turned out we had better information - thanks in good part from very frustrated readers who were willing to help each other - than that dished out by CA/PA (unhelpful, inaccurate and unresponsive) or published in much of the press. In fact, had the PA operation been handled smarter (and this would not have taken rocket science to figure out), we would not have needed to provide a clearinghouse. It got so bad, that in June we had major US media coming to us for advice and stories.

[Consul-At-Arms]

@PHK,

"I think it's an excellent idea for FS Consular Officers to serve a tour at a regional agency and vice versa. I encouraged GS employees working for me to serve in excursion positions overseas - both GS and FS benefitted."

Likewise. Even having worked in what, for overseas, is a passport section that is considered something of a major producer, that doesn't even come close to the through-put that a domestic passport office faces on a daily basis, even during normal times. The domestic passport offices have to work on what is essentially an industrial basis, whereas overseas passport services can still give more personalized attention to individual cases.

"Frankly, I see no reason that the printing facilities could not have been upgraded at the two major mail-in centers particularly New Hampshire - please note that I did not say agencies like DC, NYC, or San Francisco where rent/space is a premium although I'll bet Colorado could have been increased - and I continue to see no reason for opening new plants in Arizona or Arkansas except for political reasons. Regardless of new technology, mailing documents three different times and from three different places internally adds glitches that need not be there. Then they just add more places that need CA supervision."

I have to wonder how this administration could possibly benefit politically from passport centers in Arkansas and Arizona. I'm just not going to go there.

Since it's been a while since I was in "the loop" on this, I can't say for certain, but I would be unsurprised to learn that while new printing facilities were coming online in Arkansas (and now Arizona), capacity was being increased at existing centers. It wouldn't have done, on the other hand, to interrupt working facilities with possibly disruptive construction, &tc., in the midst of the passport surge. The increase in passport production capacity will be permanent, however. Given the upcoming "passport card" and the need for adjudication/production, that should prove helpful in the near/short-term.

Without talking too much "out-of-school," I would recount something I heard second-hand, about a budgetary concern that the Consular bureau was possibly establishing too much of a production capability, that the surge would end and we'd be stuck with with excess production capacity. There are two answers to that, both the one that notes contractor staff can be reduced with much greater ease than civil service (which is one of the primary reasons for its use government-wide), and the one A/S Hardy is reported to have said, something to the effect of a resulting situation where passport wait times were reduced below the "normal" four-to-six weeks could hardly be described as a bad thing. My words, not hers.

"Reading between the lines in your comment, it sounds to me as if a major long term glitch could be in number of adjudicators available particularly beginning summer 2009. If one is looking at a quadruple increase (guestimate)does State have 1) permission to add that many more positions; and 2) agreement to pay for them? You did not mention that last summer retired FSOs with consular experience were also being recruited for short term hire as well as FSOs and others being pressed into service temporarily. Will State have the additional staff to handle the surge expected summer 2009?"

I probably should have expanded on this a little bit more. Let me try again. On a bureau-wide basis, Consular Affairs was "bootstrapping" its adjudicational capability in a manner similar to what was done on a local basis during the surge. Experienced consular adjudicators were dispatched to passport offices around the country, along with newly-trained adjudicators pulled from State's Presidential Management Fellow (PMF), intern, and recently-hired Civil Service staff. The experienced officers provided the exo-skeleton of leaders, supervisors and mentors to the PMF-ers, interns, and CS adjudicators while they got "up-to-speed."

On a more systemic basis, a large number of brand-new adjudicators were being hired and trained at the same time that retirees and other experienced adjudicators were being brought back. State even got a waiver (similar to the one DoD uses routinely) that allowed retired State personnel to come back without taking a financial hit on their retirement benefits. That experienced cadre will be available to lead and develop the new adjudicators during the remaining work years that they have available.

So to answer your questions, 1); yes, I think so. As for your second, I don't recall the dollar amounts at the moment, but Consular was authorized to retain a few more dollars of the passport processing fees that would ordinarily have gone (I think) to the treasury general fund. The idea is that money will pay for the capital improvement (increased production capacity such as new printing facilities) as well hiring more adjudicators.

"Yes, WV did function as a clearing house for information sharing during the crisis last spring and summer. I'm surprised you hadn't seen our site at the time. Turned out we had better information - thanks in good part from very frustrated readers who were willing to help each other - than that dished out by CA/PA (unhelpful, inaccurate and unresponsive) or published in much of the press. In fact, had the PA operation been handled smarter (and this would not have taken rocket science to figure out), we would not have needed to provide a clearinghouse. It got so bad, that in June we had major US media coming to us for advice and stories."

At the time your site was serving as an information clearing-house, I was personnaly (and fully) engaged on the passport surge task force myself. So you can understand that I missed it. Being hip-deep in passport adjudications, I didn't feel the need to google around the blogosphere on the subject. I'm delighted you two were able to provide guidance to so many American citizens who needed it and who, at the time, probably couldn't get anyone in the passport or consular racket to answer their phone. It's not that they took their phones off the hook, mind you, but they were probably somewhere around the country in a passport office or similar facility adjudicating passport applications as fast as they can instead of sitting in their usual offices.

The primary reason I chose consular work as my current profession is so that I would be in a position to help American citizens who needed that help. Sometimes, most often in fact, that's a relatively simple matter of giving professional guidance in navigating visa or passport regulations and forms that they've never had to negotiate before. Before the end of my very first day on the passport task force I was remind of one simple truth related to that aspect of consular work. People often make quite simple mistakes on their application forms. As I explain when I'm training new vice consuls (or passport adjudicators), most people are completing these forms and entering these processes for the first time. They're not good at it. There's no learning curve for them. So they screw-up what to us seem perfectly transparent forms, questions, and answers.

The second part of that is that sometimes the quickest way to cut the Gordean knot is to pick up the phone and ask the applicant to clarify what they were trying to say. My first day on the passport task force, I was in a room with more than a dozen officers adjudicating passport applications for hours when I ran into an issue on a particular application. I realized I could simply flag the application and have it returned to the applicant with a form-letter explaining what was needed. Or I could simply walk over the government phone in the front of the room, call the applicant, and ask him myself. Which is what I did. Question answered. Problem solved. Passport adjudicated. And the applicant didn't lose weeks or months resolving the question by mail. I made sure the new adjudicators with whom I worked on the passport task force knew that they weren't being held incommunicado and if they felt they could quickly resolve an application issue with the judicious use of a government-funded long-distance call, that they didn't need my permission to do so. If we trust them to adjudicate matters of citizenship, I certainly trust them to make a long-distance phone call in the performance of the mission.

One of the things we also quickly noticed was that many people who had never had a passport before, and who had no plans to travel, suddenly decided to apply. I mean quite elderly folks. It's been suggested that the U.S. passport is the de facto national I.D. card. There's some truth to that, just as there's the simple fact that the U.S. passport is simply the "gold standard" when it comes to personal identification. Accept no substitutes, after all, and a lot of people suddenly decided they wouldn't anymore.

It's my understanding that the normal avenues for customer service, like call-in phone numbers and email addresses were very quickly overwhelmed. That's since, I understand, been addressed. It became nearly impossible to reach someone involved in the normal passport production process, let alone working on the individual passport task forces themselves. That left congressional intervention as virtually the only option for passport customers whose travel plans were in jeopardy.

Anyone who's worked in government knows how congressional inquiries are handled. Which is to say they get prompt attention and swift resolution. They also mean, invariably, that staff who could otherwise be engaged in productive work get sidetracked and lost to the primary mission. We all know that its every citizen's right to appeal to their congressional representatives for constituent services; in terms of a larger operations it requires that several staff members be detailed on a permanent basis to handle them.

Professionally, I'm resigned to this. It's possible, in an operation with sufficient staff, to design the work-flow to even take advantage of it, that is, once a "missing" case is located, it is brought to the attention of a adjudicator supervisor for him or her (or me) to personally resolve. That way it doesn't distract a "line" adjudicator. That's what team leaders, &tc., are for, among other things. The only time I would bring a "congressional" case to the attention of "line" adjudicators was when I saw a possible "teaching point" value in it.

You're probably right about the PA aspects of the passport surge. CA needs to stay in front of situations like this. We've got a year's reprieve with regards to the land border aspects of the WHTI, plus some more time on the "passport cards." Hopefully that will be enough time for CA to have its increased capacity fully online.

Things I worry about in this regard and related areas are the Border Crossing Cards (BCC) the first of which are now reaching the end of their 10-year validity, the "passport card" still under development, 2012 when all the children's passports issued during the 2007 passport surge will be expiring, and 2017 when all the adult's passports issued this past year will reach their 10-year expiration dates.

I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2007/12/re-passport-update-whats-in-store-for_30.html

[Eric]

Supposedly big changes in store for the adjudicative process beginning 2/1.

Also the prices for the passport books are going up (This is absurd... State started taking an extra $30 from each applicant a few months ago.) Grab your popcorn everyone.

[Eric]

Sorry, the above comment should say either $14 or $20... not sure which.

[PHK]

Eric: According to State's webpage the same prices for the passport book have been in effect as of 2005. It's currently still listed as $97 for first time adult applicants and $82 for under 18s - non expedited - and I didn't see an increase posted - but could have missed something. So if there is to be an increase it's $3.00 more each if the information in the Herald article you referenced is accurate.

People crossing by land or sea do need to check the ID requirements and make sure they are in compliance. These requirements are posted on State's webpage and I've just added to WV's passport tips page. The really big change, however, when passport books or passport cards will be required does not happen until June 2009. The other thing frequent crossers need to know is that they can start to apply of the passport cards beginning Feb. 1, 2008 but will not receive them until sometime later in the spring.

[Eric]

I've been hearing conflicting info, but apparently the execution fee will be going down $5 (the one paid to the acceptance agent). In exchange, the fee for the passport book will go up $8 for a total of $100 for in-person applications and $75 for mail-in.

No idea what other changes are going into effect, other than that parental consent will be required for minors 16 or under instead of 14 and under.

BTW... just to be clear, I'm no longer working in Congress, so this info is all publicly available. Still a topic of interest though I suppose.

[PHK]

Eric: Here's the LA Times story today. Looks like it's going to be a $3 increase for new adult and children's passports and a hefty $10 increase for renewals. Wonder if State thinks it needs more money to pay Stanley Associates for the outsourced passport printing plants? Or maybe to travel to its farflung resort locations in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Tucson, Arizona, to check up on them?

[Eric]

You made me snort up my soda... ;-)

[Eric]

Ready for a conspiracy theory? Here goes. The story just broke that 3 contract employees illegally viewed Obama's passport records. These activities first occurred in January, so it's somewhat odd that it came out only today. State isn't identifying the contractor involved, but from what they've been saying it seems to be Stanley Associates.

Guess who was awarded a $570 million contract 2 days ago?

http://investor.stanleyassociates.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=198762&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1119161&highlight=

Again, a conspiracy theory, but certainly a bit strange.

[Patricia Kushlis]

Eric: Thanks. Sure is strange. When I read the wire story this morning, my first thought was, hmmm, Stanley Associates? Does any other company get those kinds of Consular contracts from State? Really makes the contracting out process - at least in this case - suspect.

Seems to me whoever did whatever, it's another example of why this practice should be verboten. I think access to sensitive files should be restricted to a small number of career State employees with security clearances whether GS or FS.

Check a little history, too, I think I remember something similar happening earlier possibly to Bill Clinton when he was running for president. Then the culprit or culprits was/were political appointee/s. I think Republican - but I could be mistaken.

[Sevacherian]

Just curious as to what exactly passport specialists do? I heard they have to meet processing quotas, which, in light of growing demand, I think might compromise their ability to detect fraudulent applications.

[Eric]

PK- Not totally sure on that one. My guess is that these contractors were responsible for very basic data entry and the like. Might not be worth the cost to have career people doing that.

Sevacherian- Passport specialists are the people who adjudicate applications. Their union has been complaining forever that they work under too much time pressures. Who knows if that's true or not.

[patricia kushlis]

Erc: Thanks for the definition of a passport specialist. Most appreciated.

Re data entry level or not, the State Dept. can and has hired data entry clerks without going through a contractor. Been there, done that with USIA. Problem is the issue of privacy of files. There certainly should be a way that: 1)entry to all files but those with a need to know was/is blocked electronically; and 2) when and if tampering alarm bells rang, they ring in D/S as well as Consular. Why is this so hard to do? It's not as if this problem had not happened before - and been an embarrassment to the Department.

[Eric]

Ooo boy, this is going to be fun.

Article in the Washington Times this morning:

Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security

From what the Times is saying (which may or may not be valid, since it's the Times), GPO is not only outsourcing production of blank books to Thailand, they're making a profit on the books. This is apparently illegal.

The best part... "This is the first in a three-part series on the outsourcing of passports."

I bet Maura Harty is very happy she retired.

[patricia kushlis]

Eric: Thanks for the link. Will add to WV Choice. Looks like a GPO fiasco this time - but wonder what role State may have played in it - except for getting bilked.

I'll bet Gertz has it straight. He's the person, after all, who broke last week's passport file voyeurism story.

[Eric]

I want to see the next 2 articles; it sounds like they will be more focused on the State end of things.

But the stuff is really hitting the fan now.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/NATION/964721309/1001

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080326/NATION/866727364/1001