State Dept. rebuked for passport backlog

WASHINGTON – Facing an unexpected backlash from angry travelers and lawmakers, the Bush administration said Tuesday it would be flexible in enforcing new passport requirements beginning next January for Americans who return by land or sea from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

In signaling a partial retreat from strict implementation of new security rules, State Department officials acknowledged mismanaging an initial phase-in for air travelers that produced crippling passport application backlogs.

“We simply did not anticipate Americans’ willingness to comply so quickly with the new law,” Maura Harty, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, said in a written statement to a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee.

Desperate to obtain their U.S. passports, many travelers have been flying to Seattle, where the passport office is considered one of the nation’s most efficient. But even there, more than 110,000 backlogged applications are piled in closets, the supervisor’s office and the break room.

In January, the United States began requiring Americans to present passports when returning by air from North American destinations. The new requirement is intended to prevent terrorist suspects from crossing U.S. borders by requiring travelers to present a single, standardized document that can be automatically checked against government databases.

The State and Homeland Security departments last week temporarily waived a requirement for an actual passport until Sept. 30 for travelers who can show proof they applied for a passport. The agencies said the new requirement triggered a backlog of almost 3 million passport applications and quadrupled waiting time from three weeks to three months.

Lawmakers from both parties cited a deluge of complaints by constituents angry over disrupted trips.

“I’m concerned because it’s another story of complete failure in government and ineptness,” said Sen. David Vitter, R-La. “This is just another example of ineptness that absolutely destroys Americans’ – including mine – confidence in the federal government doing anything right, competently.”

On Tuesday, Harty said that her department and DHS will unveil an expansion plan, within days, “which will demonstrate that we have heard you and have heard your constituents,” and that “as a result, that rule as introduced will be very flexible.”

Passport processing times will return to eight weeks by the end of September and six weeks by the end of the year, Harty said.