Passport and Passport Card delay?

W

WhichWay2Go

Registered Users (C)
Hi All,

Just looking at another thread and USGC485 has his/her time line with the following...

"Applied for US passport and US passport card: 06/13/2008"
"Received US passport: 06/21/2008"
"Received US passport card: 08/25/2008"

There is more than a 2 month difference between getting the Passport and the Passport Card. Is this normal?

Thanks.
 
Last summer was when the initial rollout of passport cards began. It took the manufacturing facilities some time to process the backlogged applications and to streamline the process. From what I understand, both the passport and the card arrive at approximately the same time nowadays.

WhichWay2Go said:
Hi All,

Just looking at another thread and USGC485 has his/her time line with the following...

"Applied for US passport and US passport card: 06/13/2008"
"Received US passport: 06/21/2008"
"Received US passport card: 08/25/2008"

There is more than a 2 month difference between getting the Passport and the Passport Card. Is this normal?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
WhichWay2Go said:
Hi All,

Just looking at another thread and USGC485 has his/her time line with the following...

"Applied for US passport and US passport card: 06/13/2008"
"Received US passport: 06/21/2008"
"Received US passport card: 08/25/2008"

There is more than a 2 month difference between getting the Passport and the Passport Card. Is this normal?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Probably passport/cards applications are backlogged since US citizenship processing time are much improving and quicker. Remember the border rules said the passport is required to enter USA from canada or Mexico or caribbean islands. so it prompts all US citizens to apply for passports. Summer months are high peak months for US tourists to go for vacation.
 
WhichWay2Go said:
Hi All,

Just looking at another thread and USGC485 has his/her time line with the following...

"Applied for US passport and US passport card: 06/13/2008"
"Received US passport: 06/21/2008"
"Received US passport card: 08/25/2008"

There is more than a 2 month difference between getting the Passport and the Passport Card. Is this normal?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

You're quoting something from a year ago when the cards were first introduced and they had delays when trying to clear up all the backlog. They allowed people to pre-apply for the cards before production started, so there was a significant backlog, plus the production ramp up. It doesn't apply nowadays. Try to look for a more recent signature :)
 
USGC485 said:
Remember the border rules said the passport is required to enter USA from canada or Mexico or caribbean islands.
Click to expand...

@USGC485: Thanks for that information I had assumed the card was for local (Can, Mex) border crossing but if a Passport is mandatory then I don't think I will bother with the card then.

Thanks to all others who have replied. I appreciate the quick replies and explanations.
 
WhichWay2Go said:
@USGC485: Thanks for that information I had assumed the card was for local (Can, Mex) border crossing but if a Passport is mandatory then I don't think I will bother with the card then.

Thanks to all others who have replied. I appreciate the quick replies and explanations.
Click to expand...

Yes, passport is more important than passport card if you travel internationally.. For those people who wanted to visit Canada, Mexico, or Caribbean islands, passport card is fine (they wants passport card because it is cheaper and very convenient. it can be used as backup for passport or naturalization certificate. Be noted: you cannot use passport card to travel to usa by air. Only sea routes and land routes from Canada or Mexico or Caribbean islands). I hope in the future Congress will make the law to allow US citizens to use passport cards when travel by air or travel to USA from all over the world.
 
There are a few other functions of the passport card that might interest you:

1. It serves as REAL ID card.
2. It serves as backup for your passport book. If the passport book gets lost you can use the passport card to replace the passport book. No need to send your naturalization certificate again.
3. It can be used to obtain employment (i.e. it is accepted for I-9, but so is the passport book)

Other than that there is really nothing you can do with the passport card that you can't do with the passport book. The passport card has a subset of the passport book functionality.
 
Huracan said:
2. It serves as backup for your passport book. If the passport book gets lost you can use the passport card to replace the passport book. No need to send your naturalization certificate again.
Click to expand...

Thanks again USGC and Huracan, that item #2 alone, makes it all worthwhile in itself. :) It would be well worth the extra 20 or 25 bucks for the card.

Once I get the Certificate it is going to be a "pry it out of my cold dead hands thing," to take it way from me :D :D Well, after I get it back from the Passport office anyway. :)
 
USGC485 said:
I hope in the future Congress will make the law to allow US citizens to use passport cards when travel by air or travel to USA from all over the world.
Click to expand...

That's not going to happen. The passport cards do not meet the standards designated by the International Civil Aviation Organization and are therefore not valid for air travel. Congress has nothing to do with it.
 
Vorpal said:
That's not going to happen. The passport cards do not meet the standards designated by the International Civil Aviation Organization and are therefore not valid for air travel. Congress has nothing to do with it.
Click to expand...

oh I see. I wonder what the standards designated by the International Civil Aviation Organization are, why passport cards are not valid for air travel, and who made rules on that.
 
USGC485 said:
oh I see. I wonder what the standards designated by the International Civil Aviation Organization are, why passport cards are not valid for air travel, and who made rules on that.
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer, but let me guess, countries like to stamp things on passports. Passport cards don't lend themselves very well to be stamped or have things written on them. Perhaps many years in the future it will all be electronic, no matter which country you go, but I don't see this happening in the next thirty years.
 
WhichWay2Go said:
Hi All,

Just looking at another thread and USGC485 has his/her time line with the following...

"Applied for US passport and US passport card: 06/13/2008"
"Received US passport: 06/21/2008"
"Received US passport card: 08/25/2008"

There is more than a 2 month difference between getting the Passport and the Passport Card. Is this normal?

Thanks.
Click to expand...


It might be normal. My son's passport was processed in 7 days, but his passport card has not being mailed yet. So, since we aren't driving to Canada or Mexico, then I am not worried about it for now. However, they had messed up his name, Gershom as Gersom which isn't Jewish at all. I walked to the Passport Agency in DC and had the name corrected and new passport done in 4 hours.
 
Huracan said:
I don't know the answer, but let me guess, countries like to stamp things on passports. Passport cards don't lend themselves very well to be stamped or have things written on them. Perhaps many years in the future it will all be electronic, no matter which country you go, but I don't see this happening in the next thirty years.
Click to expand...

That's true, but I mean about traveling back to USA by air, I wonder why US passport card is not valid when it is valid for sea travel and land travel.
 
USGC485 said:
That's true, but I mean about traveling back to USA by air, I wonder why US passport card is not valid when it is valid for sea travel and land travel.
Click to expand...

Touche. I thought about this. This still has an issue. If you leave the foreign country with a passport card, where are they going to stamp the exit stamp? Anyway, you might argue that the person might leave the foreign country going to the USA with a passport book, but showing the passport card in the US upon arrival. For this scenario I don't have a good answer except that US immigration sometimes stamp US passports. They did that to us last time we traveled abroad. I am not sure if ICAO powers get to the point of telling a country what document to use to allow its citizens to enter the country when traveling by air. I don't know the answer to that :(
 
US LPRs do not need a passport to enter the US; so congress can always amend the laws so that US citizens only need a passport card to enter the US.

But to get on a plane (this is presumably where ICAO comes in), you need a travel document that conforms to some set of standards. If you are a LPR and do not have a passport, I think you can apply for a travel document from the US government that meets the ICAO requirements (it probably falls into the same class of documents that are used by refugees, stateless persons, etc). So basically you need some kind of book to travel by air. (I suppose hypothetically if the laws did change, dual citizens could get away with just traveling with a passport card and a passport book from another country).
 
Back in 2005 I was able to make a trip to Europe and back without showing a passport even once. I used my national id card in Europe to enter the EU and green card on my way back. I was also able to convince the airlines to let me in on board with just a green card or a national id card (that one was harder). Ever since then I am trying to repeat the experiment but the requirements must have obviously changed. It's not enough to show my ID card when boarding a plane in the US, and it is not enough to just show my green card in the EU when boarding the plane to the US. From time to time I am still able to skip showing my passport on the US border (just entered the US on GC only in ATL this past July). Also, apparently EU has a new directive, that you have to show your passport when you come from outside of EU.

Anyway, my point is it is not ICAO that dictates the rules, it is most likely multilateral agreements between US and 3rd party countries that are governing the requirements. US Passport Card may not be readable by overseas automated passport scanners.

BTW I can't wait to show up at the airline counter in ATL as a dual citizen with only my EU passport in hand. They usually ask - "do you have a green card? may I see it?" when they don't see I-94(W). I will be able to answer "no, I don't" :)
 
eltoro said:
BTW I can't wait to show up at the airline counter in ATL as a dual citizen with only my EU passport in hand. They usually ask - "do you have a green card? may I see it?" when they don't see I-94(W). I will be able to answer "no, I don't" :)
Click to expand...

They will want to see your US passport at that point.
 
sarrebal said:
They will want to see your US passport at that point.
Click to expand...

Just for the record, when departing, they always ask to see my GC now but never swipe it nor enter any information from it. It's just a glance at a GC and they get it back to me. So I guess the airline has a flag in the PNR which say "departing legally" or something...
 
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