The shenanigans of a stolen passport
"What does one do with a stolen passport?"
The lady asked me as I was leaving the District County Clerk office where I had just finished my application process for a brand new passport.
"I'm not a good enough thief to know." I replied.
What DOES what one do a stolen passport? Truthfully, I don't have a clue other than they change the photo and try to use it to help people get into the country. Perhaps mine would be especially helpful to those south of the border as it already says I was born in Mexico City. Then again, how many Mexican's have Irish names?
Nevertheless I wasn't taking any chances. I sent in a police report, put a 90 day alert on my credit score, check my bank accounts often and reapplied for a new passport.
Reapplying in a small Texas town wasn't exactly a walk through the park though. The lady didn't seem to know what to do with me. It started with my alternate forms of ID. I had my old passport which had expired a few years prior and my social security card. She wanted more forms. My birth certificate is safely locked away in Michigan so I couldn't use that but instead handed her my Michigan drivers license. This really threw a wrench in the process as she had never seen an out of state license before. When we got past all the questioning about why I have a Michigan drivers license (which I have no good answer for because you really should have changed over after 5 years of being in Texas...but I can't tell her that) she proceeded to look in her handy dandy state drivers licenses book what they should look like to make sure it wasn't a fake.
"Since when did they start putting an American Flag on your licenses? was the next question as she looked at me, thoroughly confused.
I explained that I have what is called an 'Enhanced' license which allows me to travel to Mexico and Canada without a passport as my passport information is already on the license. Of course those aren't in the book. So to try to comfort her a little I handed her the only other form of photo ID I had on me which was my Global Entry card. I figured its another form of government ID so it should work.
Now I got her though, she had never heard of nor seen one of those and decided that she would just copy ALL of my forms of ID and the passport office that my application would be sent to could figure it out.
She continued to go through my paperwork and noticed I was born in Mexico. Right away, without even taking a glance at the expired American passport sitting on top of the application she asked me in the most sincere voice whether or not I was an American citizen. I could tell she was trying to be helpful and didn't want to interrupt the process with a remark about the passport so I merely said, "yes I am" and thought it was a good thing I didn't try to use my Mexican passport as a form of ID.
It should have been smooth sailing from here but of course, I wasn't as smart as I should have been and did not bring my checkbook as I knew I had enough cash on me. They do not take cash or credit. I wasn't about to drive the 40 minutes back home to grab it so I was sent on a mission to find a store who does Money Orders. After two failed attempts I was sent to the post office which is probably where I should have just gone in the first place.
Back at the County Clerk office I was finally done. The new passport should arrive within 6 weeks and I am crossing my fingers that nothing bad comes out of whoever stole my other passport!