![]() Last year, applications that normally took six to eight weeks to handle were taking three times that long. Although the agency didn’t alert the media about the fair, news of it apparently spread far and wide by word of mouth.Īfter months of pandemic shutdowns, demand for passports among Americans eager to travel again caused a processing backlog. Ramirez said the post office held the event in part to gauge local demand for passport services. “From what I hear, people drove miles and miles and miles.” “The crowd was overwhelming in terms of the people that actually showed up and got in line for the fair,” Ramirez said. But far more showed up, some lining up before dawn, and the office had only a handful of passport agents on hand. ![]() “They should have had about 20 people” helping to serve everyone,” said her husband, Jeffrey Segol, 62, a San Jose city analyst.Įvelina Ramirez, a spokesperson for the U.S Postal Service’s Bay Area region, said the office was prepared to handle about 150 people. “They had hundreds and hundreds of children in the hot sun with no toilets, no water, no toys and no information about how long we would have to be there,” said Magnolia Segol, an attorney. Saturday just gave up and left the chaotic scene. Many who showed up well before the “passport fair” at the Willow Glen Post Office started at 8:30 a.m. ![]() SAN JOSE - For the throngs of people who waited in line for up to 10 hours this weekend, California’s only passport fair at a San Jose post office became a frustrating exercise when clerks were overwhelmed and applicants were turned away. Attendees said people began queuing up at midnight, but many of the hundreds who waited, including large numbers of children, left without being able to apply for passports. People wait in line to apply for passports at a federal government “passport fair” on Saturday, at the Willow Glen Post Office in San Jose, Calif. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |