The Haines District Court discontinued passport service
June 30, and until online training required for passport agents is made available by the
federal government, residents needing first-time passports will have to go to Juneau.
Passport authorities in Seattle said they didn’t know when the
online training would be available.
The Mendenhall and Federal Building branches of the Juneau post office
process passports.
Individuals renewing passports are able to do so by mail if passports
are not damaged. Instructions and paperwork are available online, and Haines magistrate
John Hutchins said he would keep passport paperwork available at the court.
Hutchins also said he was willing to look over applications for
completeness before residents made the trip to Juneau.
According to federal regulation, passport agents must be affiliated
with federal, state or municipal governments. But borough clerk Julie Cozzi said when she
inquired about the borough becoming an agent, she was told the federal government had put
a hold on accepting applications for new agencies.
Staff in the regional passport office in Seattle said the delay was due
to new training requirements. Authorities visited Anchorage and Fairbanks to train agents
in person earlier this year, but no stops were made in Southeast.
An online course for agents will be available in the future, but
Seattle passport customer service manager Francisco Carmona said he had no information
about when the online training would be ready.
"We are considering coming to Juneau this summer," he said.
Once the passport agent training is available, it remains to be seen
who will provide service in Haines.
The Haines post office initially expressed interest in becoming a
passport agency, but staffing cuts this spring due to decreased mail volumes precluded
processing passports, postmaster Theresa Lara said this week.
Haines Chamber of Commerce secretary Joan Carlson said her organization
had also looked into becoming a passport agent, but after nearly completing the
application process, the chamber was told the service could only be provided by federal,
state, or municipal entities.
The regional court system in March announced it would follow the lead
of courts around the state getting out of the passport business. Processing passports
overburdened staff and kept employees from working on court business, officials said.
Cozzi said the borough would consider becoming a passport agent if
there weren’t other options, but that decision would require approval by the borough
assembly and borough manager.
A determination would also have to be made about which staff person
would take on the considerable work of processing passports, Cozzi said.
Magistrate Hutchins said processing more than 320 passport applications
in the past two years comprised a fairly high percentage of his weekly workload. He’d
designated times and days of the week especially for dealing with passports since the
federal government announced passports would be required for land travel between the U.S.
and Canada.
On Monday, the last day of the court processing, piles of passport
applications lay on Hutchins’ desk.
The passport requirement for crossing U.S. land and sea borders was
initially scheduled for this summer. Federal lawmakers earned a full year’s delay for
full implementation of the requirement after a flood of applications resulted in
turnarounds as slow as three months earlier this year. Proof of citizenship – such as
a driver’s license and a birth certificate – has been required for entry into
the U.S. since January this year.
The passport requirement is a provision of the Department of Homeland
Security’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, implemented after the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks.
For passport renewal information, visit the website
http://travel.state.gov/passport/passport_1738.html.
