Announcement

26 July 2007

House Committee on Foreign Affairs
“Passport Delays: Effect on Security and Free Travel and Trade”

-- The full House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a Hearing on 11 July 2007 concerning the delay and confusion surrounding many Americans’ efforts to obtain a passport in order to come into compliance with new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiatives (WHTI). Chairman Lantos opened by saying “We are here today to see that this national embarrassment gets fixed.”

Through out the hearing several issues where of deep concern to the members of the committee. The State Department and Department of Homeland Security had 3 years to prepare for heightened numbers of passport applications that would undoubtedly accompany the newly enacted WHTI. They raised several questions about how and why could such a back log occur? What effect would this have on border security? Could their constituents get refunded for a wasted passport expedition fee? How can this be remedied, and what is to be done to prevent this from happening again?

To answer these questions the committee called on Maura Harty, the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, State Department, and Paul Rosenzweig, the Acting Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Homeland Security. Between the two witnesses their departments handle all aspects of passport issuance and compliance.

Chairman Lantos voiced his, as well as his constituents concerns, over what appeared to him to be either “An inability, or unwillingness to plan properly for what was expected to be a surplus of applications to meet new WHTI requirements.” The concerns of Chairman Lantos were echoed by those members in attendance. They all had constituents whom had travel plans ruined or were on the verge of ruin due to the inability of the State Department to issue them a passport in a timely manner.

When pressed for answers on how her bureau within the State Department could have mishandled and underestimated the demand in such an egregious manner, Secretary Harty took full responsibility by saying “We have not met the passport production standards that we had set for ourselves…I deeply regret that. The current situation is untenable, and we are committed to turning it around.”

Sec. Harty explained that while they underestimated the projected demand by just over one million, no one could have seen the compressed demand that occurred over the first three months of 2007. Through the end of March there were just over 5.5 million applications submitted for passports. Secretary Harty stated that her bureau had projected and prepared for only 1 million applications a month. In 2006 the bureau issued 12.1 million passports, they have already issued as many in 2007 and are projecting to exceed 17.1 million passports by the end of the fiscal year.

Secretary Harty affirmed to the committee that she is determined to take the necessary steps to clear the back log of applications, and has already begun new hiring’s to get the bureau up to pace with the anticipated future demand for passports. The Secretary assured the committee that the Bureau is in “Perpetual forward motion” and has hired over 2,000 people in 2005, and 2006 and will have hired 800 more by the end of 2008, as well as having brought on summer workers and bringing people out of retirement to clear the back log of passport applications. In addition she testified that a new book printing plant capable of printing 10 million passports a year had recently come on line.

Congressmen Royce and Miller both stated their concerns for the upkeep of security levels and practices. Congressmen Miller quoted statistics that passport adjudicators are expected to process one passport every two and half minutes. He went on to quote current passport adjudicators that stated this simply is not a realistic time expectation to verify that the information and the person submitting it are legitimate. Congressman Royce voiced similar concerns about passport veracity and the process of ensuring this. His concerns focused on the failure to hire new passport fraud investigators in keeping with the other new hires, and more importantly the new demand for passports. At this current time there are two fraud investigators for every 10,000 passport applications.

Congressmen Sherman questioned whether pushing back the implementation of the WHTI Land and Sea phase, which requires passports coming to and from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, to help diminish the demand for passports until the bureau can get caught up. He further questioned the process of pulling State Department personnel from other bureaus to help with passports was a smart use of man power. Sec. Rosenzweig responded to this by quoting the 9/11 commission in saying “For terrorists travel documents are as important as weapons.” He went on to assure the Congressman that a cost/benefit analysis had been done, and that the determination of the risk of security breaches in the passport process was determined to be greater than the immediate need for people to be in language programs, or in other areas of the State Department. Sec. Rosenzwweig stated that “WHTI is necessary to strengthen our security while also facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel.” The implementation of WHTI will help reduce the 8,000 different documents that Customs and Border Patrol Officers are faced with everyday, and that WHTI Land and Sea requirements should not be pushed back any further than they already have been.

Both Secretaries assured the committees that the passport back log will be fixed and the wait time back to normal by the end of September. However even with these assurances Chairman Lantos responded that “Every objective observer seems to think that the state department’s projections are wildly unrealistic.” and other members of the committee expressed their doubts about the ability of the State Department to remedy this situation by the end of September, as well let alone the end of the year.