Passport delays nearly derail Utah family’s trip as applications overwhelm officials
By April Baker
Click here for updates on this story
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (KSTU) — The thought of traveling abroad is popular this summer for many people across the county, so popular that it’s been tough to acquire a passport without delays.
That’s true for the Larsen family of Layton. They’ve had plans to take an RV road trip through Canada for months. According to Anna Larsen, she originally applied for a passport with her husband, Paul, and daughter in January.
“They said, ‘Yeah, you should see them within 6-8 weeks. My husband and daughter’s came, and mine never showed,” she explained.
By late March, the Department of State informed Anna that something was wrong with her social security number. That same day, Anna re-submitted the required information.
Weeks went by, and the passport never arrived. Anna and Paul tell FOX 13 News they couldn’t find any information that her passport was even being processed despite repeated calls and emails to the Department of State.
FOX 13 News reached out to the agency’s communications team about the Larsen’s situation.
According to Andres Rodriguez, Community Relations Officer of Passport Services for the Department of State, “That’s very unusual, so it’s just hard to tell what happened,” he explained. “By now, she should’ve had some sort of communication from us.”
Rodriguez said they’re seeing an unprecedented workload, which was prompted by the end of pandemic restrictions.
Their office is receiving 400,000 passport applications each week, he reported.
Also, routine and expedited service processing times are both longer than normal: 10-13 weeks for routine and 7-9 for expedited. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it took 6-8 weeks for routine service and 2-3 weeks for expedited.
“We are doing our best to meet our service commitments and not have to extend those processing times,” explains Rodriguez.
He adds that people should try to plan ahead by researching their travel destination and what’s needed to visit. Moreover, he encourages people to obtain their passports before they actually book trips.
The Larsen family shared similar advice.
As of May 18, Anna said they’ve heard from the Department of State after FOX 13 News spoke with them about the situation this week.
Currently, her passport shows that it has been sent and should arrive by the end of this week.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
