Secretary of State Antony Blinken is taking heat from all sides this summer for travel nightmares caused by a huge backlog of passport applications at the State Department.
According to The New York Times, Americans eager to take summer vacations are finding that getting a new passport or renewing an expired one can take months, snarling travel plans or forcing them to navigate a confusing maze of bureaucracy in a panicked race against time.
"We're throwing everything we can at this, trying to make sure that people have those blue books, that they're able to travel," Blinken said at a news conference last month. "It's something that comes up repeatedly with members of Congress, with folks that I come across."
Outrage over the passport delays has prompted a rare show of bipartisanship, with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., calling the situation a "crisis," and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., deeming it "an unacceptable failure." In a letter this spring, Utah's entire congressional delegation told Blinken that their offices were "struggling to handle all incoming emergency requests due to the sheer volume" from their constituents.
"While running a competent passport application process may not make a panel at Davos, this is an important function of the federal government that directly affects the lives and plans of millions of Americans," Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said in a letter to Blinken, referring to the annual economic forum held in Switzerland.
The State Department, which issues and renews passports for American citizens, has said it is still recovering from COVID-19-related disruptions, even as it faces a record surge of applications from Americans whose passports lapsed during the pandemic.
Down from a peak of 560,000 applications per week in March, the State Department is still receiving 430,000 applications per week and is on track to issue 25 million passports this year, according to the Times.
The current estimated processing time for passports is 10 to 13 weeks, or seven to nine weeks for those willing to pay a $60 rush fee. For many Americans who have trips planned in August, it may be too late to get or renew a passport.
"Constituents are reporting that they are placed on hold by passport offices for hours before calls inexplicably drop," the Utah delegation said in its letter. "Constituents who do get through are being given incorrect information over the phone, such as being told they cannot upgrade to overnight shipping or expedited services."
Making an in-person appointment instead of relying on the mail-in process can help people obtain passports faster, but high demand has made those appointments difficult to secure and often at sites far from home.
In a statement that expressed a measure of sympathy, Warner said that the State Department had been hit by a "perfect storm of events" — mainly the fact that millions of Americans who did not renew their passports because of the coronavirus pandemic are now "trying to renew along with everybody whose passport is expiring in 2023."
The Virginia senator also blamed Trump-era hiring freezes at the department for staffing shortages and said he was pushing for increased hiring, especially of information technology specialists.
In a follow-up letter to Blinken last month, Schmitt denounced the State Department's "misplaced" priorities and detailed a litany of expenditures that could be cut in favor of "hiring more passport agents," including millions spent of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, combatting wildlife trafficking in China and $120,000 spent on "gastrodiplomacy."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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