Responding to anguished travelers at risk of being grounded by a broken passport system, the government was expected to announce yesterday that it would ease its rules for summer travel in the Western Hemisphere, a Bush administration official said on Thursday.
Under the revised procedures, proof that a traveler had applied for a passport not yet received would be enough for travelers returning from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda to present through September, said the official, who insisted on anonymity because the policy had not been formally announced.
"But they should expect the likelihood of additional security," the official said in Washington.
Passport offices around the country have been struggling with a backlog of millions of applications since the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative started in January. The program requires air travelers for the first time to show passports on returning from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere in the hemisphere, not including US territories.
The agreement, resolving differences between a beleaguered State Department and the Homeland Security Department, follows prodding by many members of Congress whose offices have been deluged with protests from their districts.
Constituents who applied for passports as long ago as February -- sometimes paying US$60 extra for expedited service over the regular US$97 -- and with air tickets in hand had not received their documents.
With toll-free phone lines overloaded, travelers have thronged the 14 passport offices, seeking scarce appointments to plead their cases in person. The agency here, among others, has created teams to expedite cases with imminent deadlines. Some travelers said they could not apply for visas without passports.
Among those trying to ease the rules was New York Representative Thomas Reynolds. Reynolds said on Thursday, before word of an accord, that White House officials had been working on concerns by the Homeland Security Department that State Department efforts to resolve the crisis could compromise border safety. The agencies, Reynolds said, had been in "a turf war that they deny."
On Thursday, Ohio Senator George Voinovich said his office had 1,000 pleas for help in the last week and appealed to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to permit travelers waiting for passports to show birth certificates or alternate identification.
"I am of the opinion that the State Department has lost control of the situation," Voinovich wrote to Rice.
The demand could accelerate with the second phase of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. The program, which could begin as early as January, will require passports for ship, rail and road travelers, too.
On Wednesday, Representative Heather Wilson wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, saying his department might have had a policy for the problem. A post on the Customs and Border Protection Web site, Wilson wrote, said airlines had been told that they could accept "evidence of a good faith effort to obtain a passport in a timely fashion," although border officers would still decide on entry case by case.
"Unfortunately," she wrote, "it appears airlines, the State Department passport office and local Customs and Border Patrol are not aware of this policy."
The posting, Wilson said, vanished from the Web site on Thursday. A spokeswoman here for Customs and Border Protection, Debra Zezima, said that she was not aware of a change in the site, but that the agency had long said it would accommodate travelers "in exigent circumstances on a case-by-case basis."
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