Washington – The Bush administration may suspend a major post-9/11 security initiative to cope with increasingly angry complaints from Americans whose summer vacations are threatened by new passport rules.
A proposal under consideration would temporarily waive a requirement that U.S. passports be used for air travel to and from Canada and Mexico, provided the traveler can prove he or she has applied for a passport, officials said Thursday.
The proposed six-month suspension in the rules is aimed at clearing a massive backlog of passport applications at the State Department, they said.
Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M, whose state is on the Mexican border, said she had been calling on State and Homeland Security to implement a suspension for two weeks.
“I said, ‘You need to take action. This is completely screwed up,”‘ she said. “To say people must have a passport to travel and not give people a passport is right up there in the stupid column.”
The demand is such that the State Department has warned applicants to allow as long as 12 weeks for their passports to be issued and up to three weeks for expedited processing at an extra fee.
Previously, the maximum wait was six weeks and two weeks, respectively.
