I need to resurrect this thread for some advice. Mods if there is a better place, please redirect.
First let me start with, I know that better planning helps avoid the following problem. With that said, I'm turning to this helpful community to see if anyone has information that I don't.
I just received a frantic phone call from my s-i-l. She, my brother and kids are scheduled to head from Oregon to Mexico on Saturday. Last week she pulled out their passports and discovered hers was set to expire in July. She called the airline who told her they wouldn't let her board and that she needed a new passport. No mention of timatic by the airline. She didn't hang-up and call again, or call me, until today.
She found an expeditor, sent off the application the next day. Then they called her saying there was a problem with what she filled out, so she fixed it and sent it again. She was told they were using the Houston office, who shut down early the other day. She was called today by the expeditor that the State Dept is holding her passport because of some issue with the photo, but didn't have any details. The expeditor claimed the State Department emailed her, but she doesn't have any message from them. The expeditor doesn't know how long it will take to get fixed.
Is there any way to get into Mexico w/out the passport. She has - birth certificate, marriage license, color copy of her passport and US driver's license? She is a US citizen.
Do you have any suggestions so she can salvage her trip? Or at least leave with my brother & the kids, who she said would go on Saturday w/out her, if necessary?
This sounds to me like SIL used an incompetent passport service agency and paid them a lot of money for not providing timely service.
There's no problem in applying for a passport or passport renewal directly. These passport service agencies at best just delay the process a bit as you're first submitting documents to them which they then (hopefully) submit to the government. The service they should be providing is checking for compliance with all rules, including the photo, although I've noticed recently that some of them do this for an extra fee, as part of some VIP service that seems like handholding.
IIRC it's still possible to enter and leave Mexico by land without a passport. Depending on your destination within Mexico, this could be an option. However, do not assume that you can take domestic flights within Mexico without a passport. Crossing by land and then flying on a new domestic ticket might not work, so that this option might require you to drive (or take a long distance bus) within Mexico.