By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com
June 21, 2007
Confused about passport regulations? Youre not alone.
Rules are changing almost daily, Congress cant agree with Homeland Security officials, and State Department processing centers are clogged with a passport logjam that could become total gridlock within a year.
Heres the latest from the passport front:
The rule requiring all U.S. air arrivals to show passports has been postponed until Sept. 30, 2007. Until then, passengers arriving at an air gateway must show a government-issued photo ID (such as a drivers license) plus a receipt proving they have applied for a passport.
The new deadline for land and sea arrivals to show passports has been pushed back from January 2008 until the end of June, though that date has not been officially announced yet.
In the interim...
• U.S. citizens will need to show photo ID issued by a government agency plus proof of citizenship (i.e. birth certificate).
•
Kids under 15 traveling with their parents need only birth certificates.
Got that? Good it may change again tomorrow.
The Department of Homeland Security insists using a single recognized document such as a U.S. passport will prevent terrorists or illegal aliens from entering the country easily. But Congress says the State Departments inability to meet promised passport turnaround deadlines has created agonizing delays, forcing many Americans to cancel paid-for summer trips.
Too Many Documents
According to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, border officials see more than 8,000 different documents under the current system, creating obvious loopholes that make it easy to enter the U.S. with false identification papers. Each of the 50 states, for example, issues different drivers licenses and some come in multiple varieties.
Although Chertoff promises to give 60-day notice for the new 2008 land and sea passport deadline, that may not be enough for many travelers. Getting passports issued or renewed to meet for planned plane trips has taken more than three months in many cases, but the passport deluge could worsen next year because Americans make 10 times more crossings by land and sea.
The State Departments Office of Passport Services has backlog of three million passport applications. Pressured to hurry, it has waived a one-time requirement for an error rate of less than 1 per cent.
Part of the problem, according to a State Department memo, is Citigroup, an outside contractor hired to do initial passport processing. But a bigger problem is too many passports and not enough handlers even though the department requested nearly 500 more two years ago. A budget-conscious executive denied that request.
Colin Walle, president of the union that represents passport workers in the State Department, says the passport office had 505 adjudicators (inspectors) in October 2005 but only 698 on June 11, 2007. He adds that inspectors process 24 applications per hour, an average of two-and-a-half minutes each that he insists is not enough to guarantee authenticity.
In the meantime, consumers can only wait.
