By PHK
Note: for some practical tips on navigating the passport application process, please see our Tips Page.
On Monday, June 11, 2007, the Monday after the Friday that the State Department - finally - and Department of Homeland Security - reluctantly - announced a “temporary waiver” of the government’s Western Hemisphere Initiative which requires everyone traveling to the US by air from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda to have a valid passport, your newspaper’s lead editorial credited two Republican New Mexico members of Congress – Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Domenici - with almost single handedly accomplishing this seemingly amazing “temporary waiver” feat.
Sure, editorial writers can claim what they want to in an editorial: it’s their paper, but it always helps credibility if such claims are based on reality and exhibit at least a modicum of journalistic independence and political fair play. Instead, this editorial reads as if it came directly from the play book of the Press Office of the New Mexico Republican Party. Did no one on the Journal’s editorial page even engage in additional research to ascertain the veracity of the claims?
ONLY IF BY AIR
In addition to over Republican Party clientitis and a too large case of localitis, the same editorial also omitted two crucial words that make a huge difference for many people - particularly those who plan to drive across the Mexican or Canadian borders. The two crucial words omitted are BY AIR. At the very least, you need to correct this part of the record because the U.S. passport requirement for land and other surface travel to Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda does not to come into force until the first part of next year. Or if the Senate Appropriations Committee has its way, not until mid 2009.
The passport issuance delay fiasco is an important story – and it deserves an editorial spotlight as you gave it on June 11. I think it needs far more media attention at the local, state and national levels than it has received thus far before it will be brought into line. Convincing coverage of it, however, also demands regular fact checking because the requirements and applicants’ difficulties in meeting them – change almost daily.
But back to over-politicization and the Journal’s case of over “localitis:” three examples of other Congressional activities.
• According to an AP story on June 7, Upstate New York Republican Congressman Thomas Reynolds said that “White House personnel have seen the problem and they are on Capitol Hill trying to work out a compromise amid what he called a turf war between State and Homeland Security.” He also faulted ‘arrogant officials’ for failing to get the system working properly’ and fears that the situation will cause more headaches next year when it expands to include land and sea travel as well.
• In a related AP story on June 12, reporter Devlin Barrett characterizes New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer as having chided State [Department] officials for not doing more to publicize the refunds [of expedited service fees paid for expedited service not received]. For the record, State has now indicated that it is accepting requests for the $60 refunds.
• As early as March 22, Republican Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota “pressed for solutions to the passport application backlog with top officials from the Department of State and Treasury, as well as representatives of the private sector financial agent bank which handles processing of passport payment information and data entry when a person first applies for a passport,” according to a detailed post on his Congressional webpage.
Doesn't sound to me like a one-woman show or even a duet. Ms. Wilson and Mr. Domenici, therefore, were clearly not the only members of Congress to complain to the administration about the passport delay mess, and their pressure was not the only reason the administration decided it needed to begin to inject a little more effort into resolving this particular bureaucratic disaster of its own making.
Deluge of legitimate constituent complaints
From what I know about the issue – and I’ve been writing about it since February 7 on WhirledView, the world politics blog I co-write with two New Mexico colleagues, months before your newspaper began coverage – virtually every Congressional office has been deluged with constituent complaints about the State Department’s unacceptable passport issuance service since the first part of the post-9/11 inspired ‘Western Hemisphere Initiative’ went into effect on January 23, 2007.
A national and nonpartisan issue
Until the blatantly partisan, primarily Wilson-serving editorial on June 11, the Journal’s coverage – or should I say what Journal coverage there has been on the issue – has been reasonably balanced. In your May 25, 2007 Metro article, for instance, your reporter also quoted Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman on what the State Department had already promised him would be done as well as Ms. Wilson’s remarks. The same article also referred to Tom Udall’s office staff as being deluged and working daily to help northern New Mexico constituents.
Did you check, however, with Bingaman (D), Udall (D), or for that matter Steve Pearce (R) whose southernmost New Mexico district abuts the border before you wrote your June 11 editorial to see what they might have been doing to help constituents? Did you do other homework that would have shown that this issue is of national concern and that other members of Congress have also complained to the administration and asked for its resolution? Google Search is only a click away.
We know from WhirledView – and we have been quoted in and/or linked to on MSNBC, The San Francisco Chronicle and the Akron Beacon Journal in the past couple of weeks as an authoritative site and an excellent forum for reader tips on navigating the broken system - that far too many US passport applicants are furious at the wretched treatment they have been receiving from the State Department for what should be its obligation to fulfill this basic citizen service on time.
We also know from our readers that Congressional intervention on behalf of constituents has been the single most effective resource for individuals stuck on the State Department’s reverse Ellis Island. Even so, Congressional help for constituents does not always work. Certain offices are better than others. Ms. Wilson’s may well be one of the better ones since she has a strong reputation for constituent services – but she is far from alone.
We also know that certain passport agency offices are more efficient and more responsive than others. Reading through the hundreds of comments on WhirledView posts on Passports and Visas provide all of us with some great pointers. A number of Congressional offices are singled out as being particularly helpful; others have not been characterized in such laudatory terms. None, by the way, from New Mexico have been mentioned in either category.
As a Congressional intern pointed out a few days ago, most members of Congress prefer to use their staffs to deal with other issues and problems – not to devote them to an issue that need not have arisen in the first place had the administration planned ahead and devoted the requisite resources to make the new law operate successfully.
At the very least, the State Department needed and still needs to correct its overoptimistic passport issuance times on its webpage. For some people they work. For others they do not. They need to work for every applicant. State’s page may be a work in progress as web pages often are, but other pieces of information on the page also do not correspond with current reality.
In the long run, however, the administration needs a serious revamp of an entire service and fast. The managerial problem begins with a bottleneck caused by the outsourcing of the initial part of the multi-stage process to Citigroup, a private financial institution. But this is just the beginning.
A temporary waiver until September 30, 2007 is, after all, a very short time thing. If it takes cracking heads between State and the disaster that is the Department of Homeland Security, then so be it. If it means additional money (which should be affordable since passports are “fee for service),” then The Albuquerque Journal should be urging all members of the New Mexico delegation to insist upon a budgetary increase with appropriate oversight.
The bottom line is this is a problem for both the Executive and Legislative Branches to solve. The White House, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and Members of Congress - on both sides of the aisle - need to work together to do so. Urged on by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the Senate Appropriations Committee took the first step on June 14 by approving a delay until mid-2009 of the implementation of the passport requirement for land and sea travel from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda. The full Senate is expected to take up the measure “in coming weeks.”
The repairs need to begin with a reality check at the top, a system revamp, and sufficient financial support requested by the administration and enacted and overseen by the U.S. Congress. Buying more time through extending an artificially created deadline is an important first step.
Meanwhile, political grandstanding and over politicization trumpeted through an editorial that reads like a partisan mouthpiece for one or two office holders with what appear to be exaggerated claims of accomplishment does not help. This is a serious problem that has already resulted in lost or delayed trips costing too many Americans thousands of dollars and many sleepless nights: it needs far better coverage than The Journal has so far delivered.