| | The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding!
| Got Ur US Passport?
User ID: 253689
6/18/2007 10:36 AM
Report abusive post | The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding!
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The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding!
When congress tightened security at the borders by requiring all travelers to have U.S. passports for exit and entry into the United States did they give the State Department the means to handle to unprecedented demand for this documentation? NO!
If you are traveling and need a passport you better apply at least 6 months ahead of your scheduled trip or you chance ending up being like some of these folks. The State Departments listed turnaround time is a flat out lie and they are in major damage control. Trips of a lifetime cancelled and travelers out thousands of dollars as a result.
[link to whirledview.typepad.com]
[link to redtape.msnbc.com]
PASSPORT PROBLEMS TRAP CITIZENS IN U.S.
With so much fighting going on about people who want to get into the country, we didn't realize how hard it is to get out. Chaos at the U.S. Passport office has left thousands of travelers stranded stateside, many of them holding useless airplane and cruise tickets -- a situation one critic calls "reverse Ellis Island."
The irony isn't lost on Tarina Oliver, who last week canceled a trip to the Dominican Republic when her passport didn’t arrive on time. Oliver, 43, had planned to visit her sister, Camille Tillinghast, who’s teaching English for a year to kindergarten students on the poor island. Oliver also was going to bring her 4-year-old daughter Josephine to give her a chance to experience life in a very different place.
"The opportunity to visit the Dominican Republic doesn't come around too often," Oliver said. Now, the opportunity appears to be gone, doomed by red tape.
Oliver is no procrastinator. She applied for her passport on March 26 for a trip that was going to begin June 2. At the time, the official at the post office where she submitted her application said she would have "no problem" getting her passports in time. In fact, he recommended against paying extra for expedited treatment.
Oliver spent the last month frantically trying to get word on the missing passports, and landed in a quagmire worthy of a Kafka novel. For travelers leaving within 14 days, the passport office advises citizens to get an in-person appointment at a local office. To do that, you must call a toll-free number. But when you call, you hear a five-minute recorded message that pleads for patience, advising callers that there is unprecedented demand for passports. At the end of that message, the recording says no one is available to answer the phone, and tells listeners to try again later, perhaps between midnight and 8 a.m.
"I tried that," Oliver said. "I never got through."
Some applicants are storming passort offices around the country anyway -- but that's not a great option for people like Oliver. There's only 13 regional passport offices that are really equipped to solve problems, and they are only in large cities like Washington D.C. and Seattle. Most people like Oliver apply at "passport acceptance facilities" like local post offices. A visit to these offices will net troubled applications little more than blank stares.
So for now, Oliver and her daughter are trapped inside the U.S. borders, victims of increased security procedures designed to keep dangerous people out.
Avalanche of new applications blamed
The Passport Services Office at the State Department blames an avalanche of applications filed earlier this year for the mess. Because of new rules requiring passports for North American travel, applications are up about 37 percent, the office says. Last year, 12.1 million passports were issued; this year, the agency is on pace to issue 17 million.
While that's a sharp increase, it was completely predictable. The passport reform was mandated by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Soon after, the State Department announced the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires passports for travel to places like Mexico and the Caribbean.
By stranding travelers like Oliver, the State Department has shown it cannot handle the demands of increased security. After all, if the office's computers and personnel cannot handle a completely predictable increase in passport applications, how can it be expected to keep out terrorists?
e-Passports to blame?
The passport chaos raises other important questions. A 37 percent increase is not a 300 percent increase. Yet many citizens are reporting that passports aren't arriving until three months or more have passed. That's a three-fold increase over wait times a year ago. How did things get that bad, that fast?
Late last year, the State Department began issuing snazzy new passports that include a small computer chip loaded with personal information about the traveler. The chips are supposed to make the documents harder to forge. They can beam data through radio waves to passport readers, which should speed up immigration lines. But there was great debate around the chips -- computer security experts warned that the chips can be hacked and that would-be imposters could lift data from them without even touching the traveler. Debate on the security of the chips is ongoing. (As is debate on enhancements to many government-issued IDs; click to see our 'Privacy Lost' special report.)
State Department spokesman Steve Royster said the changeover to new passports, called “e-Passports,” had nothing to do with the problems. So far, the agency has issued 3.7 million chip-enabled passports since August – meaning most passports issued so far this year have been the traditional kind – but now nearly every new passport is an e-Passport, Royster said.
Barring some other explanation, it’s hard to imagine this major change has had no impact on passport delays. And one has to wonder if the chip-enabled passports -- designed to one day carry biometric information like fingerprints – can be trusted to an agency which can't even answer the phone.
Relaxed requirements
On Friday, the State Department announced it would relax passport rules for North American travelers. A passport application receipt, printed from the Web, and a government-issued ID card, will be honored as travel documents.
Now, there's the advanced security we’ve been waiting for.
The relaxed rules won't help Oliver, however. She sent her child's birth certificate in with the passport application. Without that, she has little hope of getting a state ID card from the motor vehicles department for her daughter, which she’d need to satisfy the new rules.
The rules change also doesn’t help anyone hoping to travel anywhere else in the world. Without a passport, you’re still trapped inside the country.
All hope is not lost for Oliver, however. Her sister, Camille, doesn't leave the Dominican Republic until later this month. If the missing passports arrive in time, Oliver and her daughter could book another flight. She'd have to pay large ticket change penalties, but at least she wouldn't lose the entire value of the tickets.
We should tell you that Oliver's sister, Camille, is married to MSNBC.com's president and publisher, Charles Tillinghast. That's how this story landed on my desk. But Oliver is one of only thousands of victims facing passport panic.
The best collection of complaints I found was on the WhirldView blog, published by a retired foreign service officer named Patricia Kushlis. She's been tracking the passport problems since February.
"Seems to me the whole process needs a major revamp, a reality check at the top," Kushlis said. She’s the one who has taken to calling the passport bottleneck a “reverse Ellis Island.”
Red Tape Wrestling Tips
1) The only thing that really works, Kushlis said, is calling your local congressional representative and appealing for help. Every House and Senate member has a staffer who deals with passport problems. Call the office and speak directly to that staffer, Kushlis said. Many of her readers have had success that way, but of course, it’s not guaranteed.
2) Apply early. You'd be well served to give the State Department four full months to turn around your application. If you have a passport, check now to see it it's expiring in the next year and don't put off the paperwork.
3) If you are desperate, there are "passport expediters" who will get you faster turnaround for an extra fee of $100 or more. You can find one by doing an Internet search for “passport expediters.” These agents are not affiliated with the government, however, and paying them could be risky. Tread this ground with care.
[link to www.usatoday.com]
WASHINGTON — Frustrated travelers who paid an extra $60 to get their U.S. passports expedited — and still had to wait for them — can now get a refund from the government.
The decision to refund the money, disclosed in a State Department document sent Tuesday to members of Congress, represents the latest effort to come to grips with a massive backlog in passport applications that has ruined or delayed summer vacation plans for thousands in the United States.
The delays were largely due to a new rule that requires U.S. citizens to have passports when flying to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda. Last week, the government announced it was suspending that rule until September, as long as travelers to those countries carried a printout receipt showing they had applied for a passport.
The passport delays were so bad that many of those who paid for faster service, at a cost of $60 plus the regular processing fees of $97 for a new passport, did not receive their passports within the expected 14 days. Some who paid extra waited for a month or more.
"It's an outrage to pay over $150 for a passport and still have your travel plans ruined," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who had previously called for the refunds.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Mexico | Department of State
Schumer also chided State officials for not doing more to publicize the refunds, saying they should be "shouting this refund policy from the rooftops, not whispering it in the wind."
The State Department document, obtained by The Associated Press, says passport applicants who paid for, but did not get, expedited service should send a written refund application to the agency's refund office in Washington. They should provide their passport number, if available, their name, date and place of birth, the approximate date they applied for the passport, as well as a mailing address and phone number.
Homeland Security officials have warned that the passport delays will not affect their schedule of requiring passports of everyone driving across the border into Canada or Mexico beginning in January 2008 — a rule that some experts believe will lead to a fourfold increase in new demand for passports. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 216389
6/18/2007 10:39 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
Yea, so? The great U.S fucks up again. Nothing new. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 252084
6/18/2007 10:40 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
Sounds like there's a backlog due to white flight. |
| Underground_Dude
User ID: 210726
6/18/2007 11:10 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
Interesting we just (two weeks ago) applied and received our passports. Two were renewals one was new; the renewals came in the mail in 5 business days the new one took 7 business days. I have had to wait longer to get visas from foreign consulates and some of those took 3 months. All were applied for through my attorney and I don’t believe we paid to have them expedited.
UD |
| mopar28m 
Acts 2:46
User ID: 253700
6/18/2007 11:25 AM
 | | Anonymous Coward
User ID: 213340
6/18/2007 11:58 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
Put the State Dept on the no-fly list until they fix it. |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 253985
6/19/2007 12:06 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
How sad does it have to get in order to straighten out an inaffective policy that punish the USA citizens, then allows some millions of dangerous criminals to snub their noses at the American people while freely walking right into our living rooms?
We were invited by the members of the Canadian Government to attend the International Conference on Display Pyrotechnics to be held in October 2007 Quebec. This will be my last chance to attend these meetings because of health reasons.
Why are we being treated like common criminals when our entire southern border is wide open as no border in the world is left to such careless behaviour. My wife and I refuse to violate the border of our best neighbors by illegal entry, so we miss out for respecting the borders of
others. This kind of behaviour, allowing our countrys borders left as wide open as the doors of one big whorehouse compared to those of other nations has got to be fenced in and rigidly controlled as all other nations do.
But, this does make one really think twice about just how many bad people and their evil materials have already crossed (illegaly) into our country for use against our own citizens sometime down the road? |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 254033
6/19/2007 2:23 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
Sounds like there's a backlog due to white flight. Quoting: Anonymous Coward 252084
  |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 246410
6/25/2007 12:34 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
now i really resent that air head guy that does all the shows for the history channel
see all the coool places in the world you can't travel to
watch me wear a cute hat in the catacombs
never before seen shit seen by hair do boy
who is his daddy anyway? |
| Anonymous Coward
User ID: 191988
6/25/2007 1:32 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
I'm glad I have two. |
| itdincor
User ID: 255065
6/25/2007 2:23 AM | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
How sad does it have to get in order to straighten out an inaffective policy that punish the USA citizens, then allows some millions of dangerous criminals to snub their noses at the American people while freely walking right into our living rooms?
We were invited by the members of the Canadian Government to attend the International Conference on Display Pyrotechnics to be held in October 2007 Quebec. This will be my last chance to attend these meetings because of health reasons.
Why are we being treated like common criminals when our entire southern border is wide open as no border in the world is left to such careless behaviour. My wife and I refuse to violate the border of our best neighbors by illegal entry, so we miss out for respecting the borders of
others. This kind of behaviour, allowing our countrys borders left as wide open as the doors of one big whorehouse compared to those of other nations has got to be fenced in and rigidly controlled as all other nations do.
But, this does make one really think twice about just how many bad people and their evil materials have already crossed (illegaly) into our country for use against our own citizens sometime down the road? Quoting: Anonymous Coward 253985
My sentiments also.
 |
| Mr. Predictor 
Forum Moderator
User ID: 245264
6/25/2007 2:26 AM
 | | Re: The State Departments U.S. passport issuance nightmare! Missed trips! Thousands of dollars wasted on nonrefundable tickets! Major fiasco unfolding! | Quote |
come on people .... it sounds like a lot of folks simpley waited too long to get them
we knew about this for years !!!
those who beat their swords into plowshares will find themselves plowing for those who don't |
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