Congress Shirks Its Responsibilities Again

Congress has originally sought to require US citizens to obtain passports to visit neighboring countries like Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. It had delayed imposition of the rule after finding that the State Department couldn't handle the influx of requests for passports.

Now, we're about to witness Congress holding off on imposing this security rule again.

The State Department is once again showing itself incapable of handling the paperwork.

WASHINGTON - Congress is seeking to delay a new security rule requiring passports at all U.S. border crossings next year in hopes of avoiding a repeat of last summer's vacation-killing backlog of passport applications.

The Bush administration said Monday it opposed the measure and still plans to go forward with implementing the planned passport rule next summer.

Lawmakers said Monday that under a major end-of-the-year spending bill to be voted on this week, the border passport rule would be moved back even further, to no earlier than June 1, 2009. ...

As a result of the new requirements, demand for passports soared and the State Department issued a record 18.4 million passports in fiscal year 2007, compared to 12.1 million in 2006.

The rules were originally passed as part of a 2004 intelligence reform package.

Congress and the State Department must both take the blame for failing to implement the program and funding sufficient additional personnel to review applications.

The passport rules are supposed to help border agents determine who is entering the US and delaying the rule would pose a security risk, but one that Congress apparently has no problem with.

Funny thing is that the same Congress that wanted to impose an amnesty program for illegal aliens along with the bureaucracy to process the tens of millions of people subject to that amnesty program and guest worker program are having second thoughts about a program that can barely handle an additional six million requests per year.

It shows the utter unseriousness of Congress and the Administration to secure our borders in a functional and serious manner.