Crowd Greets Returning Staff at Passport Office

When government employees returned to work at the Federal Building in Westwood Monday morning, they were greeted by a crowd of anxious people who had lined up before dawn for the passport office to open.

By 8 a.m., the line was wrapped around the building, and it took people as long as five hours to get into the passport office and finish their business. Since the government shut down last month because of the federal budget impasse, the office had issued passports on a limited basis, for emergency travel only, according to people who tried to obtain travel documents during the shutdown.

Passport officials did not return phone calls seeking information for this story.

Among those in line Monday were many who had plane tickets in their hands and nervous looks on their faces. Those who were able to prove that they are traveling in the next 10 days could get their documents in three days--for a $30 surcharge to cover the expedited service.

But first, they had to wait their turn.

Eugenia Aguirre, for one, was exhausted. She had left Las Vegas at 1 a.m. Monday, driving to Westwood with her father and her 1 1/2-year-old son, Adrian.

Aguirre, who lives in Peru, had flown to Las Vegas last month but discovered there that her passport had been stolen. Denied an emergency passport, Aguirre said, she has been waiting for weeks to go home.

“If I don’t get [a passport] today, I’m going to be pretty desperate,” she said. “My husband is waiting for me.”

Rita Rivero, a Downey resident, was beyond desperate. She had been at the Federal Building since 5:30 a.m. and, at 1 p.m., was still waiting for passport officials to find the application she had mailed to them before the government shut down.

But Rivero’s flight was leaving from Los Angeles International Airport in just two hours--not enough time to get the passport and make it to the airport, she said. Gone was an $1,800, 10-day tour of Israel.

“I thought all I would have to worry about was the weather on the East Coast. . . . I have a stopover there, “ she said. “Now the whole trip’s ruined.”

But smiles lit the faces of people who had survived the long line and were on their way out. As Marie Bathelt of San Pedro walked toward the elevator, she gave a high-five to a security guard and let out a whoop.

Bathelt is not leaving for Australia until later this month, but she wanted to make sure she had her passport in time.

“I am so relieved,” she said, a grin on her face.