The recent implementation of laws requiring travelers to nearby countries to have passports is blowing up in the face of the government. Due to the U.S. Governments inability to process passport applications in a timely manner, the rules for passport requirements for air travelers had to recently be partially suspended. Â The backlog of passport applications has caused the time to process an application and actually issue a passport to more than triple. This in turn has caused disruptions to the travel plans of millions of American travellers.
The ridiculous part of this fiasco is that the government was well aware of the amount of travel between these countries. As such they must have also been aware of the significant increase in passport applications that would result from the new requirements. But in a manner that is typical for our so called homeland security department, we are now being told that the demand was under estimated and that the government offices are not up to the challenge of handling the deluge of passport requests.
The government has proven that they are not up to the task of dealing with the paperwork that they mandated and the situation is scheduled to get much worse. Beginning early next year, passports will be required in order to travel by land to and from Mexico and Canada. This will in turn cause an even greater demand for passports that the government will not be able to process.
Southern Arizona residents and visitors should be requesting their passports now or they will not be able to travel to Mexico when needed next year. Perhaps with a little luck they will actually get their passports before they need to travel, but they should not be holding their breath. My prediction is that only the illegals will be crossing the border come January.
�