My wife applied for a renewed US passport 8 months before an international trip. 7 months and dozens of calls, emails and letters later, we had no response besides "we are busy and can't tell you when we will be done, but it will not be sooner than a month."
My mother recommended that we contact our local congressperson, David Price. I was extremely doubtful that anything would come of it. We had never had any contact of any kind with him or anyone who knows him before. We are not wealthy or have any special status. We wrote an email to his office, two days later his office called us to tell us that they had contacted the passport agency, and the next day fedex delivered a renewed passport that had been overnighted to us.
I did some research and this is actually pretty common. If you want something like a phone call or letter of inquiry to a federal agency, congresspeople are generally happy to do it because it's easy to do and generates goodwill.
Same deal with state agencies in my experience. My mom (unsurprisingly) had issues with unemployment earlier this year, she'd worked 1099 and W-2 jobs in multiple states so determining eligibility was taking forever. One call to her state rep and it was all cleared up within a week.
Another anecdote. I was at one point working in the US and had applied for status renewal. I was at a point where if I did not get the approval in 20 days I would have to stop working (after waiting for 5 months already). I reached out to my local congressperson - doubtful they might help me, a non citizen. Lo and behold, I got a letter back from the congress person and renewal in 2 weeks.
Great to hear this worked out! In general the offices of your local representative do try to resolve issues - it is their job, and it is good PR.
As to renewing a passport, I just always pay up for a service that takes care of it for me. Less risk. I once got a new passport and a China visa in 5 days, but it did cost $600.
If the article creates the impression that contacting the congressperson is an "unusually well connected person pulling strings," that's the wrong impression.
Anyone in the US can contact their congressperson & this is the typical course of redress if one is stuck in a process run by the federal government or having some issue with the federal government. A family member did it once to get a passport application expedited for a trip, it's not unusual.
Except if you only want to visit the US as a tourist, and you don't necessarily have acquaintances there who are willing to contact their congressperson on your behalf, then I guess you're screwed. Have to remember to be extra careful which boxes I tick when (or if) I visit next time. But hey, there are lots of other interesting (and more welcoming) countries in the world...
This is actually how it works. The (small) silver lining is that your friend doesn't have to be anyone particularly important, they just have to be a voter who lives in their district. I've had to go through Constituent Services a few times to get USG paperwork snarls untangled - doesn't matter if they're who I voted for or not.
Seeing from comments in this post this seems to be a very common approach/story. It sounds super wrong though. Why should a letter from (the office of) a congressman make such a difference all of a sudden, while the facts regarding the matter hasn't changed at all? In any society priding itself on the rule of law, this sort of process shouldn't make a difference at all, and it sounds an awful lot like personal favor currying both on the side of the congressman and on the government agency that responded to such a letter. So whoever contacted a congressman would suddenly get an edge over whoever that just stays put, while the agency could/should have done its job with the same standard for everybody. Doesn't make logical sense.
This is what we did for my family's visa issues. We wrote them a letter and they fixed it. Calling us with updates along the way. Also worked with VA benefits too..
It actually does work. If you have your family member's nonimmigrant US visa application denied, you can ask your congressperson to help out, and they sometimes do help.
I think every Congress member has a "constituent services" office just for matters like this.
We have some friends whose child's passport application had gotten lost in processing. Their congresswoman was able to intervene and help them get their passports in time for a vacation.
Protip: Your House representative is likely to be more responsive than your Senator. Being up for re-election every 2 years rather than every 6, House members have more incentive to directly serve their constituents.
Canadian politician offices typically have constituent services. They usually have access to MP-only phone numbers to sort out regular snafus (often immigration related). But if you’ve been caught in a systematic issue that the government created, and your MP belongs to that party, your MP is unlikely to take any action whatsoever.
You can also email the prime minister and sometimes they’ll forward it to the Minister responsible and then they have to reply. Just make sure to phrase it as a non-systemic issue when it was a systemic issue they created ;)
I spoke face to face with my MP when I was at my wits end trying to get Permanent Residency. I was working for Bell at the time, as an Engineer. I have a degree in Engineering.
My MP told me to get a job at McDonald's, Wal-Mart or Crappy Tire, because they have rubber-stamp approval for Permanent Residency, and that would be the best way. I'd just have to suck it up and earn minimum wage for 2 years.
Or be a student for four years. He had no idea how I was supposed to pay for that.
As a natural born Canadian, I'd give you full citizenship right now if I could, only based on the fact you called "Canadian Tire" "Crappy Tire"! Well done sir! You ARE a Canadian!
ANECDOTE:
I came to Canada at 3 years old with first generation parent immigrants in the early 90's and we all had citizenship within ~3 years (I was 6 at the time).
Thanks to McDonald's (and others) breaking all the rules and abusing immigrants, the current situation is you have to be physically inside Canada for 5 years out of 7 before you can even apply for citizenship.
And that's just to apply. The process can easily take a year or two longer. Also every day I spend outside Canada (holiday, visiting family, whatever) pushes that back.
Wrong info. Here are the actual rules from the Government site:
To be eligible to become a Canadian citizen, you must:
be a permanent resident
have lived in Canada for 3 out of the last 5 years
have filed your taxes, if you need to
pass a citizenship test
prove your language skills
Other requirements may apply.
I got my citizenship ages ago but I think the rules were about the same.
Yeah, that was Mr Mike at his best. When they can't do something productive they get "tough" on immigration/crime/lap dancing/whatever other subject tickles their cockles. After him they must've changed the rules back.
This makes me feel better about dealing with the staff at the office instead of ever hearing from the MP themself.
Though I did email an MP about how Bell was trying to destroy Teksavvy and out lacklustre telecom competition (my DSL line was stuck at 1mbps...). Their office responded that our MP was a retired Bell linesman and Bell’s competitors use poorer quality lines.
I guess Bell was good to him at the expense of their customers...
Simply having a good job is not enough, there is no "stream" for that. I was on a 2 year working holiday visa for that job, and when the visa ran out I was done.
.. eventually though I convinced Bell and the Province I was living in to run me through the "Provincial Nominee" stream, which required TONS of paperwork to prove that no Canadian was willing or able to do the job, and therefore they needed a foreigner like me.
That took 2 years of paperwork, interviews, medical tests and background checks and being saddled to that job before I finally got it.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My neighbour's work permit was stuck in limbo pre-covid. On my advice, she contacted our Liberal party MP, and although the MP signed off on a letter asking for it to be expedited, IRCC basically told her to pound sand. It still took an unreasonably long time to arrive, pretty much what they guaranteed.
I still think it would have been worse without the letter, and at least it helped my neighbour's spirits. She comes from a part of the world where nothing happens without a bribe, and even then it ain't very effective.
