As we all know by now, the U.S. State Dept. vastly underestimated what the new rules requiring passports for everyone traveling beyond our borders would mean. The number of passports issued this year is double that of last year, and 3 million applications are currently pending.

In a somewhat misguided effort to help people with summer vacation plans inside North America, the government waived the requirement for actual passports to return from the Caribbean, Bahamas, Canada and Mexico—as long as people could prove they had applied. That, of course, simply encouraged even more people to apply, in case they wanted to go somewhere spur-of-the-moment—thus totally swamping the already overwhelmed passport processing and application system. As a result, even getting that formal acknowledgement that a passport application has been submitted now takes three weeks, passports take up to four months, and even expedited passports are taking longer than a month. And that deal expires Sept. 30, well before the logjam is expected to break. There are now passport processing centers in Charleston, S.C. and Portsmouth, N.H., operating 24 hours a day and not open to the public (though their phones are), and a new one being built in Arkansas. They’ve been recruiting federal employees, supposedly including military, to help staff the centers. A bill is wending its way in Congress that would allow the passport offices to rehire retired (and already trained) Foreign Service employees—that sounds like a no-brainer, but currently if those people work, they lose some of their retirement benefits, so a bill is required to get around that. Meanwhile Congressional offices are also in a new line of work; many Congresspeople have become the enabler of last resort, helping to expedite passports for voters in their districts who must travel within three weeks and whose applications are stuck in the system. People who can prove they are traveling within 14 days can make an appointment to be serviced at a passport office—if they can get through on the phone to get an appointment—and are encountering lines of 10 hours or longer. It is, to put it simply, a huge mess. But if that’s not enough stress for the anxious would-be traveler, consider what recently happened to a friend of mine. The family is heading to Europe next week, and her five-year-old’s passport will expire while they are abroad (kids must get new passports every 5 years, not every 10 as for adults). She applied two months ago, and with her Congressperson’s intervention has been able to track its progress through the Charleston center, complete with a phone number to call—which she has used plenty. The other day, while she was attempting to finish up some work, with two small children running around and a plumber disassembling a sink, two men in suits showed up at her door. Secret Service. It seems that according to written notes, either she or a caller right before or after her to the Charleston office had threatened the life of the President. After searching her house for weaponry—and playing Hello Kitty with the three-year-old–they left to compare her voice print with the recorded threat. My passport needs renewing. I think I’m gonna plan on staying home for a while. I hear Kansas is lovely this time of year.

–Mary Hunt, Editor, eFlyer