Infant Passport – Getting A Passport Is Simple
Any parent that is going on an international trip and that plans on taking their child should get familiar with passport laws immediately. If you think that just because the child is a newborn or a minor that they can freely pass between borders, you are sadly mistaken. The process itself is almost identical to what an adult has to do, with provisions in place because of the age of the young international traveler.
While it may seem silly to force an infant to carry a passport, there are several practical reasons that make it necessary for all U.S. citizens to carry passports during international travel. First of all, it is a matter of national security and border security. The government needs to know who is entering and leaving a country at a given time. Allowing infants to forego passports would make it easy to sneak in infant illegal immigrants–an action that seems innocuous, but could have serious consequences twenty years down the line.
Requiring passports for infants is also an issue of human rights. Requiring children and infants to carry passports helps to seriously curb illegal human trafficking. By requiring infant passports, the government has made it much more difficult to deal in the illicit trafficking of children.
The infant or child will get their passport in much the same way that an adult does. It goes without saying that the child will not be able to do this on their own, so mom and or dad are going to have to do all of the work in order for a valid passport to be obtained. In addition to the forms, do not forget to get the passport photos of the child.
Since an infant cannot sign their own name, mom and or dad are going to have to handle the task for them. It is actually a co-signature that goes on the passport until the child can sign the passport by themselves. When the child is able to sign their own name, the passport can be renewed with their actual signature on the passport.
In order for the co-signature to be valid, the parent will have to sign their child’s name and then their name next to it along with their relationship. In other words, it would read: child’s name, parents’ signature and then mother, father or guardian in parenthesis. The ideal situation would be that the parent that is signing the passport would actually be accompanying the child on the trip. This could alleviate any challenges that may be faced going through customs.
If a child is not yet 16 the passport can only be obtained if consent is given by the parents. The obvious reason for this is so that one parent does not get the passport and take the child out of the country without the knowledge of the other parent. This will not be a problem for parents that are still together, but if there has been a divorce or separation, make sure time is allotted to get everything together so there is not a problem in securing tickets or making the trip.
It should now be pretty obvious why the infant U.S. passport exists. It may sound a little silly when you first look at the law, but it actually there to protect children from various things. Therefore, getting these U.S. passports is a smart decision for any parent, regardless of how old their child is. If an emergency or surprise trip comes up, the baby or young child will be ready to go with you and there will be no challenges in getting in and out of the country.
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