A lot of people have complained about the difficulty getting a passport issued or renewed. Dealing with government bureaucracy is confusing on its best days and frustrating on average ones, but it's good to see that so many members of Congress are trying to put pressure on the State Department to address the woes. Attached is a letter a very large group of Representatives sent to State asking pertinent questions that define issues they are hearing from constituents and pushing for answers that was sent to us at KTRH News that I thought worthy of sharing with you. The information is on the first two sheets and about 15 pages of signatures follow, but if this is an important issue affecting your life, its worth the read. This is from one paragraph. The link is below.
"Last month, Secretary Antony Blinken testified before the House Appropriations Committee about the “dramatic” increase in passport requests, noting that the State Department is “getting 500,000 applications a week for a passport. That's 30 to 40% above last year.”[1] Congressional offices subsequently have been experiencing an influx of constituent requests for assistance on passports, now consisting of a disproportionate percentage of our Office’s constituent services caseload. Moreover, although the State Department issued roughly 22 million passport applications last fiscal year, it is clear that applications this year are on pace to exceed that number by 18%--suggesting that currently extended wait times could continue to increase."
Here's the full link: