Passports & Illegals
By Erick Posted in Immigration — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Last night a friend of my wife's was leaving Bible Study and explained her situation. She is traveling overseas with her young sons. The boys need passports. She applied for the passports in mid-March with a flight scheduled for mid-June. The date arrived for her flight and the federal government had not processed her passports. Not only had they not processed her passports, they had put her to the back of the line because they determined she would not get the passports before her trip, so why bother.
The airline has kindly rescheduled her flight for July 4th. The passport office has yet to send her the boys' passports. Her problem is a national problem. Many others have the same problem.
If the federal government cannot process passports for its own citizenry in a competent, timely manner, how on God's good earth can we expect the federal government to process Z-1 visa applications and background checks for a flood of illegal aliens in as rapid a manner as the immigration bill demands? And what will happen if things break down? There will be lawsuits, there will be new legislation, and there will be a lot of people granted citizenship who should not have been granted citizenship.
According to Senate Republicans and Harry Reid himself, Mitch McConnell has been directly complicit in screwing conservatives on the immigration bill.
Call Mitch McConnell today at (202) 224-2541 and tell him to vote against Cloture and to encourage other Republicans to do the same.
If we can't give priority to the needs of American citizens, we don't need to give any priority to the desires of illegal aliens.
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Passports & Illegals 14 Comments (0 topical, 14 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
If you are a Mexican citizen, you get a Mexican passport from the Mexican government. Even people who are here legally with a green card or some other kind of visa don't (or shouldn't at least... not sure how closely they check the documentation) get US passports.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
force the person to get a passport back home before they come back here?
I think that's the main reason for opposition to any "touchback" requirements - the stuff about separating families is a smokescreen.
Hey, I am a summer intern in a Congressional district office. We are swamped with passport issues. Many of our constituents have the same problem as your wife's friend does. Have her call her Congressman or Senator and they can help her get their passports on time. We have had a 100% success rate so far. It really works
I've heard the same thing from two other people, but you are a more reliable source.
When I needed last-minute processing on my renewal last month, I made an appointment at the passport agency the day before I departed (the first available), went in from 9am to 10:30am, came back at 5pm, and walked away with a new passport.
If you live next to an agency, it's not bad.
However:
1. If it takes six weeks (many in line had waited over eight weeks) for a passport, and you can only get expedited processing two weeks before you travel, that means the middle 4+ weeks are a no-man's land for processing passports.
2. The automated phone system is horrid. It's so very very slow for scheduling, the interface is very badly designed, and information is presented to the caller inefficiently and in bulk.
3. You are not allowed to schedule appointments until two weeks before your travel date. Appointments fill up 11 days in advance, so you have a three-day window to schedule an appointment.
4. Don't tell people their passports are going to take up to six weeks, when they actually take up to 10 weeks.
All that being said, I was of course very very pleased that I was able to get same-day turnaround for an extra $60. Well done. I just feel that the system could be run much more efficiently and sanely if my end-user experience is representative of the system as a whole.
If we can't give priority to the needs of American citizens, we don't need to give any priority to the desires of illegal aliens.
I'd go with that. But I still think this is a solvable problem and that both tasks can be accomplished.
Sure, there's a glut of new passports right now. Eventually, the system should handle it fine, though. Say 20% of the population has passports, then it's six million passports that need to be renewed each year. They're working overtime now, but are processing 1.5 million passports per month, so six million per year is easy. An additional one million new passports (population growth) will also be required.
That's seven million passports per year, and our all-out capacity is 18 million.
Now, I'm having trouble finding statistics for the number of Americans who fly to Mexico and Canada each year. If 780,000 Americans fly into Mexico City annually, I'm going to go with the educated guess of 10 million total who require new passports.
That still puts us only at 17 million passports this year, out of an all-out capacity of 18 million. (If I didn't screw up the math anywhere.)
In computer science, we call a problem like this "embarrassingly parallelizable". The time involved is proportional to the resources thrown at it. We need more people or more equipment or something.
So why did we decide to increase the load on the passport agency without increasing its capacity? Why did word get around that you need a passport to go to Mexico, when you only need one to fly to Mexico (until sometime in 2008)?
After tons of pain, the error was recognized and the deadline for passports was moved to September 30 of this year. It would have been nice to have the right thing done to begin with, though.
From Fox News:
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration plans to announce that it will ease into-- but not abandon-- tougher passport rules planned for U.S. border crossings next year, according to congressional aides briefed on the matter.
The Homeland Security Department, responding to a torrent of complaints about delays in passport applications that have hampered summer travel plans, will alter its requirements for Americans at land and sea crossings beginning in January.
The rule would affect U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.
Under a post-Sept. 11 security law passed by Congress, U.S. citizens are required to show passports at such land and sea crossings beginning in 2008, but homeland security officials privately told legislative staffers late Tuesday that the rule will, at least at the beginning, require proof of citizenship-- meaning a passport or a birth certificate would suffice. That requirement could last until spring, according to those familiar with the plan.
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As recently as last week, homeland security officials insisted they were not backing off the January deadline, but they have been under intense pressure since a similar passport requirement-- begun five months ago for air travel to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda-- caused major headaches.
The new air travel rule caused a flood of passport applications, leading to a backlog at the State Department processing centers that postponed or ruined the summer travel plans of thousands of Americans.
Complaints from the public and from Congress about those delays forced the Bush administration to suspend the air travel passport requirement.
Officials announced earlier this month that those flying to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda may now do so until September with an identification card like a driver's license and a printout from a State Department Web site showing they have applied and are still waiting for a U.S. passport.
Yet another case where something sounds like a good idea (require almost everyone entering the US from another country, even Canada, to have a passport) but has a serious negative backlash.
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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
I keep hearing people talking about entering country legally, play by the rules and wait in the line. What line ? Somebody has to explain this to me .
Not even better educated people from EU have a chance to just simply apply for a legal status in the US after years of living here. THERE IS NO LINE. And there is no southern border either.
How about this :
1.Pass a reasonable bill
2.Secure the border
3.Employee verification
4.Issue an ID
5.Tax and penalize illegals and use the money to secure borders
6.Set rules, English, Crime free, hard working people can stay
7. Let's stay humans.
Nobody will even notice that the people will become legal , they are still here now. We are just trying to be hardheaded. If there is an accident and 4 mexican workers are injured, at least they will be able to identify them and hospitals can bill them. At least they will have to pass a driving test to ensure that they are able to operate a vehicle. Right now the system is prohibiting them from obtaining a drivers licence, that will not stop anybody from driving, is it?
What is the big deal ?!
People are affraid that it will affect votes, well, they will become legal residents and thus they are not gonna be eligible to vote.
Maybe in 8-13 years if they will become citizens they will, it gives us a plenty of time to properly introduce our politics and get their votes.
There is no other way, waiting and making both sides miserable is not gonna work.
What do you think ?
that's what I think.
" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln
The man clearly registered to make that post... I mean come on, you're being completely unfair to expect more, heh.
Run like Reagan!
what's next?.."Can't we all just get along?"
" in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
Abe Lincoln
sorry, just thought this might be a better place for the message anyway.
So, What is the legal way ? Nobody ? Hmmmm...
Look at the USCIS website and read for yourself,
Maybe it's just an empty phrase.
To respond to your off topic cross posted message.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman
How many people who are here illegally have passports? I mean, if they've "undocumented" might that include being "unpassported"? Think about that and some of the debate taking place - it's a very important point possibly.
Kay Bailey Hutchison and others have pushed to have illegals return to their country before getting amnesty here. But if they do that, won't they have to get their country to issue them - all of them including the kids - passports before they can cross back again legally?
Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but I suspect this is a key consideration that has been riding just below the radar throughout this debate.