Action line 81012 - Passorts

  • Published
  • By Anonymous
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Complaint: 

I would like to make it known the pain and struggles of getting a residency permit for a newborn baby born in Turkey. My baby was born in the beginning of August and I turned my paperwork in for the residency permit and the "No Fee" Passport Aug. 26. When I turned in the paperwork, the MPF customer service representative compared my paperwork to a checklist and said everything was there for the passport and it would take about 6-8 weeks, Oct. 7.

I thought everything was going well with the passport but 4 weeks later MPF sends me an email saying they needed a copy of the birth report. During that time, I got tasked to deploy this winter. With this, I was planning on taking vacation to take my new baby girl home to meet the family. After the notification of the missing paperwork, I turned it in the next duty day and was told it will take 6-8 weeks again from turning in the documents. That pushed the date I would receive the passport to after the date we need to leave on vacation.

I asked MPF if there is a way they can either expedite the "No Fee" passport or get me a tourist passport or anything that could allow me to take my baby home. MPF told me they could get me an emergency tourist passport which would take about 2-3 weeks. I got the paperwork together and turned in the next day and was told again it would take 2-3 weeks for the passport to come in.

I am getting close to the date when I need to leave for my leave and training and still haven't received any of the passports. I stopped into MPF to check on the passports and they told me the paperwork hasn't been sent in yet for the "No Fee" passport. When I asked about the emergency tourist passport, MPF told me that paperwork wasn't processed yet and that it was a first passport application and would take 4-6 weeks. I asked them why they didn't submit it as the emergency one like they told me and received no response.

With this passport delay by MPF, I now can't get a residency permit for my baby, which means I can't take her home with me without paying 230YTL for not having a residency permit. If MPF would have properly checked the paperwork I wouldn't be in this situation. This is very hard on the morale for a guy deploying for 6 months with 2-3 months of training in front of it. It is hard enough to know I am going to be away from my first baby for at least 8 months, and this just makes it harder. This process needs to be thoroughly scrutinized to make it easier for the Incirlik community. I know I am not the only person/family in this situation.

Response: 

First, let me apologize for the headaches you encountered in this process and thank you for bringing it to my attention. Unfortunately, this is not the first time we've had such issues, but are working to resolve them agressively.

The bottom line...we really messed this up and appologize for the headaches. Part of the problem is no good written instructions for our folks to follow, it's mostly word of mouth right now, but we are fixing that. Additionally, we have just trained two new passport liaisons so we're confident this section will now get much better results and future requests will be reviewed by two personnel to help catch any errors.

I have been informed that you recently received your child's tourist passport in time for you to enjoy leave in the States with your family before your deployment. Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to respond to your concerns regarding getting a passport and congratulations on your newborn child! We're making the process better thanks to your feedback.