Travel plans lodged in passport limbo

By MICHAEL DOBBS Special to the Washington Post
Published June 26, 2007

KORCULA, Croatia - Freedom of travel used to be a basic right that we took for granted, like freedom of speech. This summer, for millions of Americans, my family included, it has become a struggle with an unseen, dysfunctional bureaucracy.

I am sitting on the terrace of a house overlooking the Adriatic Sea, where we like to spend the summer. I am here without my wife and two teenage daughters, who are waiting for their U.S. passports to be renewed. They are hoping to join me next week, but nobody can tell us when they will receive their travel documents.

When they applied 11 weeks ago, they were told they would receive the passports in eight weeks. We have made dozens of pleading telephone calls, sent numerous e-mails and listened to repeated recorded messages ("due to an unexpectedly high call volume, we cannot answer your call right now; please try later"), without any appreciable result.

The passport mess is the result of bureaucratic unpreparedness: The government failed to plan adequately when it made passports mandatory for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Passport offices around the country have been so swamped by applications that the system has broken down.

To get an American passport these days, you have to know which buttons to push, starting with those on your touch-tone phone.

"Press 1 for English; press 2 for Spanish, " begins the recorded message from the State Department's passport hotline. I pressed 1. A two-minute explanation followed about the extraordinary hard work being undertaken to ensure that Americans can go ahead with their travel plans. Then, "Press 1 to access our automated appointments system with your nearest passport office; press 2 to speak to a customer service representative."

Pressing 1 sounds promising but always produces the same result, at least in my experience. "We cannot take your call at this time, " a message says, followed by a click. Pressing 2 repeatedly eventually yields a real person, though it's one whose powers of assistance are limited to sending a message pleading your case to some other office.

There appeared to be a ray of hope this month when the administration announced that it would temporarily relax the new passport requirements to the Western Hemisphere. You can go to Mexico, Canada, Bermuda or the Caribbean as long as you have government-issued identification and written proof that you have submitted an application for a passport. But the change has come too late to help travelers to the rest of the world whose passports are snarled in bureaucratic limbo.

Last week, my wife called our representative, Chris Van Hollen. An aide promised to do everything he could to ensure that the rest of the family can join me next week. It turns out that many members of Congress, including Van Hollen, now have staffers working full time to try to get passports for aggrieved constituents. Van Hollen's office has already succeeded in "dislodging" more than 300 passport applications.

Unfortunately, Van Hollen's contacts are with the Washington passport office. My older daughter applied for her passport in Miami, where she goes to college.

As for me, I am enjoying the sunset dipping over the Adriatic. My secret: I have an Irish passport.

Michael Dobbs, a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, is a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

[Last modified June 25, 2007, 21:26:47]