For decades, nonprofit public libraries have been able to process passport applications for residents, but since February 13, these services have come to a complete halt despite heightened demand. The State Department began sending cease-and-desist letters to nonprofit libraries, otherwise known as association libraries, last fall. They outlined that these libraries could no longer serve as so-called “Passport Acceptance Facilities” based on a 1920 law that bars nongovernmental organizations from providing passport services.
Official notification came in January — when these libraries were told that February 13 would be the last day they would be able to process passport applications. States like Pennsylvania and New York have been disproportionately impacted by the order — mainly because a significant portion of their public libraries are actually considered nonprofit entities. In Pennsylvania, that percentage is 85%, and in New York, it is 47%.
Brandt Esnor of the Wayne County Library Alliance said, as rumors started circulating last fall of libraries not passing their yearly inspection as Passport Acceptance Facilities, librarians were largely confused from having offered these services with no issue until now.
“We got a letter from the State Department saying that it’s always been in the law that nonprofits cannot do it,” Ensor said. “However, apparently for 15 years, they did not follow the law, and actually at one time, we’re encouraging public libraries to do it because we offer better hours and weekend hours than a lot of the post offices and government places that had been doing it.”
Out of the 26 libraries in the state no longer eligible, two were in Wayne County — the Hawley and Hamlin Libraries, which have been processing passport applications for about 15 years and received a significant amount of their revenue through doing so. Similarly, 25 libraries in New York were impacted, according to Max Prime, Director of Government Relations and Advocacy at the New York Library Association.
“Brooklyn Public Library, since 2011, has processed 300,000 passport applications,” Prime said. “So these are not small numbers that we’re looking at. We’re looking at a massive service, both in places like Brooklyn but also in smaller rural communities throughout New York that rely on their local public libraries as their access points for service like this.”
In the Mid-Hudson Valley, the Beekman and LaGrange Libraries in Dutchess County, Elting Memorial Library in Ulster County, and Julia L. Butterfield Memorial Library in Cold Spring were affected — each processing 600-700 applications a year. And need has only increased amid federal requirements for a Real ID and ICE violence across the country, which has fueled the desire to have physical proof of citizenship.
Ensor said that, during the weeks leading up to February 13, all appointment slots were filled and staff worked additional hours to make sure that as many residents as possible were able to process their applications. While it’s been a month since the order, he described how residents are still reaching out.
“They still get calls about it just about every day, even though it’s been almost a month now that they haven’t been doing it,” Ensor said. “To me, it was the wide variety of people from a wide variety of places — we’re talking people coming in from counties away to our Hamlin Library, for example, because it was just easier than going to Scranton or Wilkes-Barre.”
Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Executive Director of the Mid-Hudson Library System, said communities have also expressed fear of the order’s overlap with the recent passage of the SAVE Act in the House. The Act requires residents to 1) provide proof of citizenship with a passport or birth certificate when they register to vote and 2) a photo ID at the time of voting. Advocates argue that this act, like its predecessors, targets voters from marginalized communities. If you don’t have a passport, you need to be able to show a birth certificate with the same name as on your driver’s license — adding another barrier for women and trans voters, who’re more likely to have changed their name since then. Ready access to these documents is also an issue that disproportionately impacts voters of color and working-class voters.
“I think at first it was kind of shock and confusion, then there was irritation at the inconvenience, and now there’s anger because people are feeling disenfranchised,” Aldrich said. “There’s some concern [that it is] not just this innocuous kind of bureaucratic mistake that’s trying to be corrected by the federal government, but some people have a theory that there’s some level of disenfranchisement here for voting. That’s some of the language that’s coming back to us.”
For libraries, the order also cuts at their revenue. Ensor said that the Hawley Library is set to lose $8000 a year, while the Hamlin Library will lose closer to $35,000-40,000 a year — a quarter of their budget — from not being able to collect passport fees. Aldrich cited funds of $20,000-25,000 lost for the four impacted libraries in the mid-Hudson Valley, which she said could develop into staff layoffs and budget cuts at these libraries who’ve depended on offering these services to make money.
“These libraries run on a shoestring,” Aldrich said. “They thought it was a win-win for everyone. It would be a convenient service for folks that would also bring in some revenue for the library. So I think the local taxpayers are also going to see a burden here as well because now the same services that they are used to expecting will cost them locally more without this revenue stream, or they’ll see cuts.”
With bipartisan support, legislation has been introduced to allow nonprofit libraries to continue offering these services, but Prime said more momentum is needed to pass it.