Sep 21 2012

Department of State Form DS-71: “Affidavit of Identifying Witness”

We don’t normally require our friends and family to show us their papers to establish their identities. We have better ways of recognizing who they are.

Many US government agencies, however, seems to want to make government-issued ID credentials the only way to establish who we are — even when Federal regulations require them to accept other forms of evidence of identity.

Case in point: Department of State Form DS-71: “Affidavit of Identifying Witness” for passport applicants.

As we’ve noted previously, the State Department’s own regulations at 22 C.F.R. § 51.28 entitle applicants for US passports to establish their identity by the affidavit of an identifying witness, in lieu of documentary evidence of identity.  But it seems like the State Department doesn’t really respect this right, and prefers to get all applicants to provide papers, rather than people, to “prove” who we are.

As of today, the version of Form DS-71 posted on the State Department’s website is an obsolete one whose use was approved by the Office of Management and Budget only until Dec. 31, 2005. Elsewhere on the State Department site, the link for Form DS-71 in the index of passport forms links to a PDF of an otherwise-blank page that says, “Please visit your local [passport] Acceptance Facility to obtain this form.”

Disturbingly, we’ve received reports from people who went to the State Department’s own passport offices, accompanied by witnesses prepared to identify them, and were told that no current version of Form DS-71 was actually available.

We can’t see any reason not to make this form available online with all the rest of the passport forms, much less not to have it available at passport offices, other than to hide its existence and discourage its use.

Having let its approval for any version of this form lapse for several years, and having now obtained only temporary approval that expires at the end of this month, the State Department is now in the process of seeking renewed OMB approval for a revised form, to be used for the next three years.

According to to the State Department’s application to OMB (which includes both the current and proposed versions of Form DS-71), the number of passport applicants using this form has declined dramatically, from 163,400 in 2009 to 44,000 this year.

The State Department claims that this decline is due to greater use of other “public records” by passport examiners. But a better explanation for the abrupt decline in use of this form is its removal from the State Department website and from availability at passport offices. Applicants for passports are providing other identifying records because they aren’t being told they have the alternative of establishing their identity with an affidavit from an identifying witness.

Have you tried to establish your identity to the Passport Office by having a witness identify you? Have you had trouble obtaining the proper form, or been discouraged from using it in favor of obtaining and providing other types of evidence of identity?  Please let us know.

[Update: Here’s the version of Department of State Form DS-71, “Affidavit of Identifying Witness”, most recently submitted to and approved by OMB.]

8 thoughts on “Department of State Form DS-71: “Affidavit of Identifying Witness”

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  4. We were just called yesterday and told that our son’s passport was denied. He was a home birth and has no birth certificate or social security number. The guy said his name is Stylianos and kept insisting that we get a birth certificate. I told him that we sent everything the website required (according to the secondary evidence) and expect a passport. He said he was sorry the website is misleading but the secondary evidence was only put into place for those born in the 20’s and 30’s. I objected and said having a birth certificate is NOT a law. I said “So you are telling me that I can’t get a passport for him because he doesn’t have a birth certificate.” He told me that he wasn’t going to go into all that with me and that I needed to get a delayed birth certificate and told me I needed to call the CDC. Now we have to fight…

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  6. I am presently in a nightmare trying to get a passport. I have a birth certificate and three state issued id cards but all are expired. They would not accept my wife of 15 years signing for me. So the ss admin will not give me a copy of my ss card because I do not have a non expired id. I am 58 years old and never left the country. Now I am a non citizen. I am going to pitch a tent at the ss office and make them arrest me until I get media attention. This is so wrong. They refuse to give me any id of any kind. But the moment I am challenged by authorties that id is the first thing they want to see. It is easy to hate this country.

  7. I have tried everything in order to aquire an I.D in washington state and keep running into brick walls.I have lived here and also California most of my life and currently was given 3-5 years left of life due to cancer and can’t even travel to see sights before I leave earth.please help me I’ve run out of options.Thank you.

    Melanie Medeiros

  8. My situation is the same I just get out from prison after 18 years, and I went to the post office to apply for my passport and I was denied all my ID are expired.

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