‘You’re going to see hundreds of these stories.’ Passport delays affect Kansas travelers

If you intend to travel out of the country later this year or next, the time to start planning is now.

Kansas residents have reported experiencing delays and issues when trying to get passports.

The problem has gotten worse in the past few months.

“Summer travel plans have created a significant increase in passport applications,” said Roman Rodriguez, communications director for the office of Congressman Ron Estes, in an email. “More people are applying for passports, and this has caused significant delays.”

Winfield resident Jacque Arnett was planning to go on a cruise with her family. Though the cruise itself was a closed loop and didn’t require passports, her 19-year-old son planned to fly from a different port to attend a wedding.

Arnett decided to send off for passports for both her 18- and 19-year-old sons. Despite requesting the 19-year-old’s a week sooner, the younger son’s passport was the only one that came back without trouble.

“Nothing ever came of my oldest son’s, who we had sent off prior,” Arnett said.

The passports were sent for in early March with expedited processing in preparation for Arnett’s late-May vacation. At the time, the window for receiving passports through the expedited process was five to seven weeks.

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According to estes.house.gov, the expedited process time frame has since been bumped up to seven to nine weeks. Those not applying for expedited processing can expect a 10- to 13-week turnaround.

“It got within that two-week window of when you’re gonna leave and they tell you you should call the passport agency,” Arnett said. “We called at, like, early in the morning, and we got a recording saying they were too busy to speak to us and call back later, and it hung up.”

Travel.state.gov says that those who have already applied for a passport and are within six to 14 days of their travel date should call in to make sure they receive their documents on time. Arnett said she later called the National Passport Information Center again and spent hours on hold before being told that her 14-day window wouldn’t actually be active until the next day.

Arnett said she was told “they couldn’t help us and to call back.”

“Then we called the next day and we were on hold for hours, and then they told us they didn’t know anything,” Arnett said. “We were leaving, not even, about 10 business days later.”

It was Friday, May 5, that Arnett was told by the information center that they had no updates on her status. The next day, she received a letter from the Buffalo Passport Agency dated May 1.

“The application was not accepted and executed by an authorized Passport Application Acceptance Agent, as required by law. We will process your request once our office receives a properly executed passport application. Your documents will be kept on file and returned with the newly issued passport,” the letter read.

“We kept calling them and they said they didn’t know anything,” Arnett said. “They’re the ones who mailed the letter on May 1, and we called them and actually got to speak to them twice after May 1, and both times they didn’t know anything after hours and hours. It’s like, how do you not know? You’re the ones who mailed me this letter.”

Arnett said she redid the paperwork as soon as she could and took it to the post office when they reopened Monday morning.

“I did exactly what the paperwork said to do, I filled out another application, I had everything, and I went down there, and we overnighted it to where it was supposed to be overnighted to, and it just … nothing happened,” she said.

This problem isn’t unique to Arnett and her family. According to Rodriguez, Estes’ office has lately been seeing a rise in cases dealing with trouble acquiring passports.

“If you get on Facebook and any travel group, you’re going to see hundreds of these stories,” Arnett said. “I was very frustrated, very upset, because you know, when you spend a lot of money and have plane tickets and everything, it can be very upsetting.”

Another such case threatened to disrupt the travel plans of Haysville resident Jennifer Teufel. Teufel and her family of six were flying into Cancún for a trip to Playacar in Mexico.

Teufel said she applied for her family’s passports about 12 weeks in advance back in early March. Without using expedited processing at the time, the window for getting her passports back was eight to 11 weeks.

When their travel date was fast approaching, however, Teufel and her family still hadn’t received their passports.

“The lady on the phone said, ‘We’re only processing passports for people leaving in the next two weeks,’ and I said, ‘Well, where is our passport in the process,’ and she said, ‘I can’t tell you that. All we can tell you is that it’s in process,’” Teufel said. “She said, ‘We have no way of knowing, like, if it’s even been looked at yet.’”

Teufel expressed frustration with the length and confusion of the process, especially given the amount of time and money the agencies are given for the passports.

“They cash your check immediately when they get it, and it cost us $1,000 to get passports for six people,” she said. “Something’s broken, obviously… I mean, it’s a paper document.”

When Teufel tried to call passport services, she was also met with long hold times and was hung up on. Worrying that they would not make their travel date, she took a friend’s advice and reached out to Estes’ office.

“I was shocked by this, they picked the phone right up,” she said.

Teufel said a constituent services representative from Estes’ office immediately began helping her through the process.

“She was amazing, and I swear, like, if I could hire her to work at my company, I would steal her. She had incredible work ethic, very detailed, gave me status updates, she would call me, she would email me even after hours,” Teufel said. “I got my kids’ passports probably within a week.”

Though it took Teufel and her husband a bit longer to get their own passports renewed, they arrived from a facility in Virginia before the trip.

Arnett had a similar experience with Estes’ office. After Arnett was told to reach out for assistance, the representative helped Arnett get her passport situation handled on time for the trip.

“She worked very hard for us, and it just wouldn’t have happened without her, honestly,” Arnett said. “I know that their agencies are being swamped, just from what I’ve seen from other people in forums. Their agencies are being swamped with these requests every single day because passports are just taking so long to get done and come back.”

“She saved our vacation,” Arnett said.

Unfortunately, not everyone struggling to get their passports has been so lucky.

“On the way back, I was sitting beside a lady on the airplane … they went there [Cancún] for a wedding,” Teufel said. “The groom’s passport didn’t get there in time, so the whole wedding party went to Cancún without the bride and the groom. And he had contacted his local representative and they still couldn’t get it, so I can’t imagine the, you know, the family memories they’re costing.”

“I’m just very happy it was taken care of, and I really feel bad for all the other people that it hasn’t been taken care of for,” Arnett said. “I hear that there’s other representative offices that aren’t as helpful.”

Estes.house.gov now recommends applying for passports nine months ahead of any international vacation just to be safe. The page also suggests travelers use trackable mailing options and stay aware of their passports’ expiration dates to avoid any trouble.

If your travel date is within 12 weeks, Estes recommends you call his office immediately at 316-262-8992 before applying.

Rodriguez said that, though Estes’ office understands constituents’ frustration, taking these steps is a good way for travelers to help ensure their passports arrive on time.

“It’s very materialistic kind of, you know, to be upset, but still. This is my kids’ first trip out of the country,” Teufel said. “I just think of all these other people that, again, have sick family or education or have really big things that they need to leave the country for and can’t get it because a process is broken by our government.”