Amid an unprecedented surge in demand for US passport processing, the State Department is extending its application processing call center hours to weekends as at least one US Senator The US says the agency should take additional steps to increase staff.
In a statement to NBC News, a department official said the agency now offers call center service on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET.
The spokesman said the agency has also tripled the number of phone lines available at the National Passport Information Center, and is “aggressively” hiring and training additional staff to handle the influx of calls it continues to receive.
The Department said this month that it is experiencing an increase in demand for passports this year, with approximately 400,000 applications each week. That’s just slightly less than the more than 500,000 requests a week it received in the first half of the year, as US international travel soars this summer.
Overall, the State Department expects to receive nearly 2 million more applications this fiscal year than it did in the record-setting year before the pandemic in terms of applications.
The Department recommends that passport applicants submit their application at least six months before the date of departure.
Following a visit Friday to a passport-processing center in Washington, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told NBC he sympathized with Americans’ frustrations.
“We have to do better,” he said, adding: “You shouldn’t have to wait three hours on the phone.”
While he said it was apparent from his visit that department officials were working as hard as they could, he said the agency should look to hire as many workers as possible for call center positions, since they don’t require clearances. security.
“We should be able to have that scaling capacity… You shouldn’t have to call your senators,” Warner said, though he also believed the biggest wave of demand had passed.
A call to both his US senators and his representative has gone nowhere for Jhonas Amulacion, a Spokane, Washington, resident who has been planning since last year to visit family in the Philippines this summer with his partner.
They submitted their applications in early May and paid the $60 expedited processing fee.
So far, they have not received any updates on whether they will get their documents on time. Amulation is preparing for the possibility of having to travel to Seattle, a drive of about four hours, for a last-minute in-person appointment.
That trip, he said, would already add to the thousands of dollars they paid for their plane tickets, though thankfully they’re refundable, and the hours they spent waiting on hold before dawn to reach a customer service representative first thing in the morning. tomorrow.
A State Department spokesperson said in an email that clients like Amulation and his partner would be eligible for a refund of their $60 if they did not receive their documents on time.
“I understand that everyone is overwhelmed and that it is a luxury service to even be able to fly,” Amulación said. “But we were really hoping that we could do this trip with the family; I haven’t been there in a long time.”
