Leahy: Passport Delays
A Preview Of Even Worse To Come
If Bush Administration Continues To Ignore
Problems With WHTI Border-Crossing Plans

(FRIDAY, June 8) -- Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who has led congressional efforts to fix flaws in plans to implement the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), said the passport processing backlogs that have snarled thousands of Americans’ travel plans in recent weeks are a harbinger of far worse chaos to come if the Bush Administration holds to its current schedule for further deployment of the new border-crossing scheme.

Leahy and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) last fall pushed through to enactment their legislation that gives the Departments of Homeland Security and State up to 17 extra months, until June 1, 2009, to address WHTI’s many problems.  Their amendment sets out seven requirements that must be certified to Congress before the program can be implemented.  So far, the Bush Administration has maintained that it will not use and does not need extra time to be ready.  The current passport processing backlog followed the Administration’s recent launch of WHTI’s first phase, for air travel in the Western Hemisphere.  On Jan. 1, the Administration plans to begin a much larger phase, for those crossing borders by land or by ferry.

“What we’ve been seeing is just a taste of the chaos that is likely in January,” said Leahy.  “Vermonters have been calling my office for help, and we have been doing what we can, passport by passport.  And the same thing is happening all across the country.  Despite the Bush Administration’s repeated claims that the air rule was proceeding smoothly, the facts have clearly shown otherwise.  There is another train wreck on the horizon if these agencies continue pushing forward with full implementation of WHTI before the necessary policies and procedures are in place to handle the surge in applications and the lengthy delays that are in the offing.”

“They’ve been warned again and again, and even this passport debacle hasn’t knocked sense into them,” Leahy continued.  “In the very same announcement about emergency steps to deal with this crisis, DHS maintains the fiction that they will be ready to implement the biggest phase of this program next January.  They are recklessly risking the travel plans of millions of Americans and the economies of scores of states and communities.” 

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