I mean… that IS how you get a passport. Just replace “police station” with “post office”.
The issue is that the US is comparable in size to the EU. Even excluding the flyover states, people can spend an entire lifetime just going on domestic trips for holidays and the like.
So the vast majority of Americans see no need for a passport until they have booked their dream trip and realize that France is a different country. Hence the mad rush and expedited processing and so forth.
I personally make life more inconvenient for myself because I refuse to deal with booking time for photos at a post office or pay a pharmacy to do it for me so I end up spending ten minutes in gimp formatting things every N years. But that is very much a stupid me thing.
and only four walk-ins a day on certain days of which people show up an hour before the post office opens to try and get one of those spots, then they sit in camper chairs until about 3pm to be seen. and they mail you the passport so you cant just pick it up at the post office. you could also go through a third party to get you a reservation sooner than 6months somehow, they also redo all your paperwork to justify paying them I guess but that quick reservation is the key
I mean… that IS how you get a passport. Just replace “police station” with “post office”.
The issue is that the US is comparable in size to the EU. Even excluding the flyover states, people can spend an entire lifetime just going on domestic trips for holidays and the like.
So the vast majority of Americans see no need for a passport until they have booked their dream trip and realize that France is a different country. Hence the mad rush and expedited processing and so forth.
I personally make life more inconvenient for myself because I refuse to deal with booking time for photos at a post office or pay a pharmacy to do it for me so I end up spending ten minutes in gimp formatting things every N years. But that is very much a stupid me thing.
You cannot walk into a post office and leave with a passport
It’s about 11 weeks now.
and only four walk-ins a day on certain days of which people show up an hour before the post office opens to try and get one of those spots, then they sit in camper chairs until about 3pm to be seen. and they mail you the passport so you cant just pick it up at the post office. you could also go through a third party to get you a reservation sooner than 6months somehow, they also redo all your paperwork to justify paying them I guess but that quick reservation is the key