Passport to Delay

I hope the next administration in Washington improves the U.S. passport system. According to press reports, the system is broken, with long delays.

My passport expires in August, 2008. That means I can no longer obtain 12 month visas from many countries, because most countries will not issue visas that last longer than the passport itself. So I decided to pursue getting my passport renewed now, in person, at the U.S. Embassy (a.k.a. "The Fortress") in Tokyo. The Fortress is only a 15 or 20 minute walk away from where I live.

I filled out and printed the online renewal form, to be ready to go when I arrived. However, I quickly found out that it's the wrong form. You'd think the State Department would have the correct form available. The Fortress staff are quite friendly and helpful, so that's a plus. The cashier accepts U.S. credit cards for the fee and charges U.S. dollars, so there's no problem with foreign exchange. There's a fast and effective photo booth to obtain the proper sized pictures. All that works well.

The problem is that you have to surrender your passport to process the renewal, and renewal could take a couple weeks. Hasn't anybody figured out that's a huge problem for the prototypical global businessman, not to mention many other people? I'm still trying to understand how a U.S. citizen staying in Tokyo but without an alien registration card ("short term" stay) would be able to comply with Japanese law while getting a passport renewed. Most countries expect you to have your passport (or alien registration card, for longer term stays) handy at all times while visiting.

The other problem is that if The Fortress has your passport, you're stuck and cannot leave Japan. If I get an urgent call tomorrow to go fix some problem two hours away in Korea, there's nothing I can do. If there's a family emergency, I need to hope I can retrieve my passport from The Fortress.

So why does The Fortress need to hold my current passport in order to renew it? And why hasn't anyone figured out that's a huge problem? I could understand holding it for the day. (Most visa issuing countries will let you drop off a passport in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon, stamped with the visa.) But 10 days? Two weeks?

I can only imagine how much worse it could be at other embassies. As I said, the staff were quite friendly and helpful. It's the process itself that makes no sense in 2007.

While I think visas should be abolished for tourism and short-term business trips at least, I do want to applaud Australia for having the most convenient and trouble-free visa system I've encountered. The whole process is available online, instantly. You type in your passport details and your credit card details (for the small fee), click a button, and a few seconds later you have your visa. Airlines can electronically verify you have a visa when you check in and, if you don't, they can do the same thing for you on the spot. In fact, the whole process is so painless that Australia doesn't even call it a visa. Granted, if you're a citizen from a country that Australia wants to discriminate against, usually for economic stereotyping reasons, then the process is much slower and more painful.