Pushing Against the Passport Backlog

M aura Harty is at the center of the nation's passport predicament.

She is the State Department's assistant secretary for consular affairs and is running an around-the-clock operation to catch up with a huge increase in passport applications from American citizens, including many flying to vacation spots in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda.

The demand soared at the beginning of the year, as travelers sought to comply with a new rule requiring passports for all U.S. citizens flying within the Western Hemisphere.

And that demand has created a backlog of about 500,000 applications that have been pending for more than 12 weeks, spawning complaints by travelers who saw their trips in jeopardy. It also highlighted once again how post-Sept. 11 laws ripple from Capitol Hill across the country.

To ease the strain, the requirement was modified June 8, allowing those who have applied for, but not received, passports to reenter using other documents.

Harty's "not happy" with processing times, which are running from 10 to 12 weeks, instead of the usual six to eight. "The notion of customer service is a sacred part of what we do, and part of a long and very proud tradition," she said.

Harty knows that many Americans have seen or read news accounts of frustrated applicants waiting in long lines at passport offices, and she said employees were working overtime to respond to emergencies and extraordinary circumstances. Recently, she said, officials cleared 79 of 80 University of Texas students for their summer study-abroad program in time for their flight.

Many passports are being rushed to applicants through overnight delivery services, she added.

Harty has to balance customer service against national security, because once a person has a passport, they have proof of identity and citizenship, can move fairly easily in and out of the country and may make claims for federal benefits. "This is one of the premier documents on the planet," Harty noted.

In some respects, running the Bureau of Consular Affairs is like running a public utility, Harty said, because operations are largely financed by fees for visas and passports.

That means she has to stretch her revenue to pay salaries for about 9,400 employees who deliver consular services, to run plants that produce the blue passport booklet and to cover unexpected costs, such as helping find lost backpackers in foreign lands and evacuating Americans in distress.

Harty, a Georgetown University graduate and a Foreign Service officer since 1981, has served as ambassador to Paraguay and as the department's executive secretary. She became assistant secretary for consular affairs in November 2002.