Soon, El Paso residents who wish to apply for a passport will no longer be able to use the El Paso county passport office. The office, which accepted applications for regular and expedited processing, is located inside the El Paso County District Clerk’s office at 500 E. San Antonio.

County District Clerk Gilbert Sanchez announced the planned closure on Monday.  He blamed it on budget cuts and an “unsupportive” commissioner’s court, though the office was making money and the commissioners’ court is sorry to see it go.

Sanchez told the local Fox 14 station that he was closing the office because “It’s a non-mandated function. My position here is to service the courts. Commissioner (Veronica) Escobar has said why don’t they go to the post office…The people of El Paso had two years to get their passport. The post office is still open and they can get it by other means.”

The passport office will be closing next month unless something changes.  But if you’re in El Paso, don’t worry…there are actually multiple post offices throughout the city that will be happy to accept your passport application.  Visit the Department of State’s website for a list of passport offices in El Paso.

Like the office in the County District Clerk’s office, these passport offices are all passport acceptance facilities, which means they can only take applications for regular processing, which can take 6 weeks or more, or the government’s expedited processing, which can take 3 weeks.

If you need your passport more quickly, you’ll have to make an appointment at a different type of passport office, called a Regional Passport Agency office. These offices can issue same-day passports, but the nearest one is in Tucson, Arizona.

If you don’t want to go that far out of your way or you just don’t want to go through the hassle of making an appointment, a private expediting company like RushMyPassport.com may be a better fit for you.  With an expediting company, you can just go to the post office as usual and have them “seal” your documents. Then, send them to the expediting company and the expediting company will hand-deliver them to the Department of State, for processing times as low as 24 hours.

Apply for your expedited passport today!