asterroc | Proposed forms for passport application

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Proposed forms for passport application

q10 and seekingferret, you'll want to read this.

The US State Department is proposing a new Biographical Questionaire for everyone applying for a passport. The form would require all citizens to provide the name and contact info of all previous employers, the address of all previous residences, and addresses of all immediate family members (parents, step parents, siblings) and their citizenship status. In addition, naturalized citizens will need to provide the address of their place of birth, and anyone not born in a medical facility will also need to provide their mother's residence a year before and after your birth (presumably so the government can track those citizen children of fence-hoppers who wish to travel abroad), and contact info for witnesses (presumably so the government can strip your citizenship if you don't provide the info or if they're illegal immigrants who the government can bully into recanting the story of your birth in the US).

A lot more info is available here, including the full form and links to submit comments:
http://papersplease.org/wp/2011/03/18/state-dept-proposes-biographical-questionnaire-for-passport-applicants/

The comment I submitted:
The information requested by this document is ridiculous, and the gathering of the information is prohibitively difficult to obtain. I am only 33 years old, but I have had six employers in five different states and it would take me around an hour to track down all their contact information. In addition I have lived at somewhere between 10 and 20 different residences and it is not possible for me to find all those addresses. This high number of jobs and residences is primarily a result of my being in academia, and this form is systematically biased against academics and will stifle international cooperation and research as a result. In addition, it will seriously hurt naturalized citizens and US-born citizens with foreign parents. There is no need for this level of detail unless the government is deliberately attempting to prevent the movement of it's citizens, in violation of the UN charter of basic human rights.

Edit: There is some question about whether this policy might only apply to people unable to provide traditional forms of proof of US citizenship, or whether it would really be all US citizens looking for a passport. There is also some question about the validity of the supposed form hosted at the above link. Unfortunately the .gov website doesn't actually contain any information about what it is we're supposed to be commenting on - what is the form, who would it apply to, etc.

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D: It's a -passport-, not an application for a high level security clearance!

An ex-Army Intelligence friend of mine pointed out that it's more information than she had to give when getting her actual top secret clearance.

Then it's even worse than I thought! It looks like it's about exactly what I had to give the Air Force for mine - but that was a long time ago, and I don't remember the details. I was also just done with college, so my list of previous residences and employers was very short.

It seems from the link

rosefox posted in her separate comment that this form is currently only being proposed to be used with people who cannot provide traditional proof of citizenship. For example, for the US citizen children of Mexican fence-jumpers (but who cares about them anyway, they don't deserve to be citizens, right?), for everybody living in a place where the records have been destroyed in a natural or man-made disaster (but it'll be obvious that they should be citizens - if they're white), or for citizens born abroad (but if your parents were that rich to be overseas when you were born I'm sure you'll get a good lawyer so it's okay to put you through hoops).

Ah, that makes a little more sense. It still seems excessive, but not as thoroughly evil/stupid.

It's about comparable to what my brother had to provide to get a low-level security clearance (internship at a defense contractor). (In addition, my brother had to list every time he'd left the country in the past 10 years, what dates he was gone, and where he stayed. Which was hard, because he was 19 and didn't remember much about some of the earlier family vacations. He also needed character references, of course.)

More details in the comments here. In particular, it would NOT be for everyone applying.

Interesting. As some people say there and elsewhere I still don't trust the government not to expand it to more people. And even if I did, I don't necessarily think this is right anyway - see my longer comment above. I wonder what form people with non-standard records have to fill out now?

presumably so the government can strip your citizenship if you don't provide the info or if they're illegal immigrants who the government can bully into recanting the story of your birth in the US

that's nowhere in this. it sounds like the worst they're going to do is refuse to issue you a passport. which is plenty bad, but fairly different from being stripped of citizenship.

I will admit I'm being alarmist, but I see no reason for the government to require this information for a passport, no indication that this information will be kept separate from any other investigations into the individual, nor any indication that the information about the citizens' relatives will be kept confidential. The mere fact that they are collecting this information will discourage the citizen children of illegal immigrants from applying for passports.

everything you say is true. none of it has anything to do with the passage i quoted. how do you get from any of those things to stripping somebody of citizenship, which is actually a pretty complicated thing to do?

it sounds like the worst they're going to do is refuse to issue you a passport. which is plenty bad, but fairly different from being stripped of citizenship.

IMO the difference between "stripping a citizen of citizenship" and either "denying a citizen the rights and privileges of citizenship" or "denying that a particular individual was ever a citizen" is academic.

liberty-or-death stuff notwithstanding, there's a pretty big difference between denying somebody one of the rights of citizenship, and denying them all of those rights.

this sounds really scary, but i'm a little nervous about the relative lack of references to sources. the page you linked has a link to one very general description of the proposed form at a .gov domain, but all of the links to specifics re PDFs hosted by their own domain name. in particular, they don't give any from-the-government reference for why they think this birth and employment information will be required. i don't trust the government, but i don't trust random people who panic about things on the internet either. i'm trying to find some kind of actual evidence that their description of what's being planned corresponds to what's actually being planned, but so far there's very little on the web linking back to authoritative sources.

The .gov domain link includes a very general .pdf explaining the purpose of information gathering. In that is included the following:

The primary purpose for soliciting this
information is to establish citizenship,
identity, and eligibility for a U.S.
Passport Book or Passport Card. The
information may also be used in
connection with issuing other travel
documents or evidence of citizenship,
and in furtherance of the Secretary’s
responsibility for the protection of U.S.
nationals abroad.

The proposed form (whatever it may be) is intended to establish US citizenship, and may also be used to make decisions about whether to issue documents that can be used as evidence of US citizenship.

Interestingly, that same .pdf seems to be truncated at one page - the last phrase seems incomplete and there isn't a period at the end of it.

Also interesting, I got randomly selected for a survey afterwards and made sure to say that I didn't find what I was looking for since I didn't find the actual text that they want us to comment upon.

but they are allowed to ask for evidence of citizenship before issuing a passport. that is reasonable. what's unreasonable is asking for complete employement and residential history and certain awkward details about your parents and so on. but that's exactly the stuff that's completely unsourced.

Of course, you already have to provide place of birth (and if you don't have a previous passport, a birth certificate or naturalization certificate--and you need a birth certificate for the latter--which would typically contain your address of birth), and names of parents and places of parents' birth.

I'm really lucky that my parents have maintained up-to-date passports for me basically since birth (since most of my dad's family does not live in this country), because without that I don't know how I would have ever gotten a driver's license, let alone renewed my passport the one time I've had to as an adult. None of what they currently ask for seems outright unreasonable to me, but that doesn't mean I have--or even have access to--all of it, either. But I get through a lot of hoops for free just by having an old passport.

At the same time, although annoying, inappropriately intrusive, and somewhat irrelevant to the passport document (and for those second two reasons, I don't think they should require it), most of this new stuff you list actually sounds easier to get than what's already required. I mean, do you know how hard it is to get a birth certificate if they won't accept a photocopy? I know it's hard enough that I've never actually seen my birth certificate.

And then there's the information they wanted for my dad's Israeli passport renewal. Which he flat-out refused to get, as it would have required a couple plane trips galavanting around the East Coast (my dad lives on the West Coast), and also would have caused a huge amount of trouble for the entire rest of the family. But they'd already printed my dad's passport, so they just made a note in his file to ask him for that stuff next time he renews. He's hoping they'll have lost that note in 10 years and he won't need it next time, either.

In my experience it was easier for me to get a birth certificate when I first got my passport than I think it would be for me to get the information in this form (if it were approved and required for all passport applicants). I recall filling out a form that I mailed to some office in Albany with a check. The form was quick (though the turnaround was not).

It would be time consuming for me to find the addresses and contact info for my 6 or so past employers. Not difficult, but the time would take more than an hour I'm guessing, and certainly more than the 45 minutes listed to fill out the entire form.

It would be very difficult for me to get the addresses of the 10-20 different places I have lived. I have lived in at least 11 different residences because when I have had summer jobs out of state where I filed taxes as a part-year resident and sometimes registered to vote in the new location, and when I lived at college I filled out the census and filed NYC taxes as a part-year resident or a non-resident. I may have lived in as many as 20 different places if you count each dorm in college as a different residence. One of the places I lived I just checked, I have no email record of the address so I would have to use a Google streetview to find the address.

And I'm a privileged individual. What about people who grow up to low-income parents who moved frequently during their childhood or crashed on relatives' couches for years? What if said parents have passed away? What about people who were fostered as children? What about people who were not born in a medical facility and have to find their mother's place of residence a year before and after their birth?

Ok, I just looked up what I would need to get a birth certificate. I would need to mail to a third party company my name, parents' names, the hospital I was born and the date, why I want a birth certificate, state-issued photo ID (How would I have a state-issued photo ID without a birth certificate? I don't know, other than that, again, my parents maintained passports for me practically since birth. It's also pretty ambiguous on the form whether by "state" they mean any state or just the state where I was born--where I certainly don't have, and never have had, any photo ID. They also don't say that a photocopy of my photo ID would be acceptable, which means I would have to relinquish my driver's license), and my credit card info or a check.

They also list things I could send instead of a state-issued photo ID, almost none of which are things someone too young to have a driver's license would have. Which creates a catch-22, where it's basically impossible for someone to get a driver's license in the first place unless they happen to have their birth certificate. (Once again, in my case I was lucky enough to already have a passport, which most people don't.)

How would I have a state-issued photo ID without a birth certificate? ... it's basically impossible for someone to get a driver's license in the first place unless they happen to have their birth certificate

NY state (among others) does not require proof of legal residency in the US to obtain a driver's license or state photo ID. NY requires only proof of identity/birth date (which can be something like a foreign passport, or a statement from a parent/guardian who already has a photo ID) and proof of name (such as bank statement, ATM card, union card, HS diploma, GED). (List of forms of proof, statement from parent/guardian form.)

(IMO this is part of what makes Arizona's law about proving residency on demand so horrible, that many state licenses don't actually prove residency. I know I know they claim that a license will be accepted, but that's not in the law as written.)

In Michigan you need a) something with your SSN (SSN card, W2, or pay stub), b) proof of legal presence (birth certificate, passport, naturalization card, or whatever documentation you have if you're foreign), c) proof of identity, and depending on how convincing you may need more than one (I remember using my passport, old California driver's license, and a school ID for that, although it turned out any two of those would have sufficed), and d) proof of state residency (utility bills, lease, mortgage, etc.). In my case I didn't have my SSN card, either, so I brought a pay stub, a passport, a California driver's license, as many school IDs from various schools as I could find, and the title deed to my condo. Oh, and the only allowance they make for minors here is that the proof-of-state-residency can be in their parents' name as long as they can prove that their supposed parents are actually their parents.

In California, where I originally got my license when I was 16, you need a) your SSN card (which my mother actually does have, I just don't have it) or various military stuff, b) proof of name and legal presence, c) proof of name. The only difference is in California you apparently don't need to prove state residence.

So, yeah, the two states I've gotten driver's licenses in do require proof of legal residency in the US.

Are you kidding? ALL previous employers? It's definitely not just academics who will have trouble with that.

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Proposed forms for passport application

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