by CKR
If you need information on how to get your long-overdue passport, start by clicking here. The previous thread, on which additional tips and phone numbers appear, is here. All of WhirledView’s posts on passport problems can be found here. Comments are closed on previous posts on this subject. Please continue to post your experiences and tips on this thread.
We’re getting hundreds of hits a day from people looking for how to get a passport under severe time constraints. A few have reported times from application of more than fifteen weeks; I think I saw a comment in the past few days from someone who had applied in March. But some lucky people get their passports in time, although the rules seem to change daily and are different from one office to another, one telephone call to the next.
It doesn’t appear that things are improving. A few months back, we thought that the backup might improve after spring vacation, but as summer approached, it got worse. The Senate (WV comments here and here), and yesterday the House demanded answers from the Departments of State and Homeland Security. Congressional offices are suffering from overloads of constituents asking for help in getting their passports. Those offices have many other issues to deal with, and they want the passport problem solved.
I couldn’t find live Web coverage of yesterday’s House hearing. Here is Chairman Tom Lantos’s (D – CA) opening statement. Apparently only Reuters, USA Today and ABC News thought it was worth covering. The media, for the most part, have given the story its fifteen minutes worth of coverage and have moved on to other things. The one exception seems to be when reporters or friends of reporters run afoul of long lines or other inconveniences to their golden lives. (Who is Paul Thornton, anyway? No identification at the bottom of the article.)
Thornton links to a short and confusing video. The commenter in that video suggests the State Department website for a waiver form, not mentioning which countries this applies to, and then points out that some of those countries may require a passport for entry anyway. “Go online and get all the information necessary,” suggests the newsreader in her anodyne wrap-up.
I must congratulate WhirledView’s commenters. I’ve waited between trips for additional pages to be inserted in my passport, and that was in much better times. All three of us know the anxiety associated with visa requirements and the absolute and hard deadline of flight time. Our commenters’ patience and civility testify to Americans’ reasonableness and comity, even when confronted with a government that can’t reconcile requirements with capabilities.
We’ve had a minimum of the blaming that Thornton and others have indulged in. People who have planned well and believed the times that the State Department made public have been caught in a terrible situation.
At the same time, some workers in the passport offices are doing yeoman duty in serving the public. Marlene Littlefield at the New Hampshire office deserves special recognition. And we appreciate Eric’s input from the vantage point of a congressional aide.
It’s not at all clear when things will improve. WhirledView will continue to cover the situation. Good luck to all.