THE family of an 86-year-old Jamaican migrant has turned to the local media in their effort to get redress from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after what was to be a month-long wait for a renewed passport morphed into six months.

They say the new document supposedly went missing en route to the Jamaican Consulate in New York.

In a letter to the editor of the Jamaica Observer, the family members said the senior citizen is facing health challenges as she “has endured the harsh and unforgiving brutal winter blast, and some very burdensome travel expenses as she was forced to show up at the consulate on numerous occasions to enquire about her passport”.

According to the family members, the elderly woman, who was in good health prior to the start of her ordeal in January this year, “is now descending into depression, becoming withdrawn and feeling more and more dejected”.

The relatives say Jamaica’s Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) has indicated that the new passport, which was applied for between January 9 and 10 this year, was delivered to the consulate in March.

Despite this assurance, however, the relatives say neither additional visits by the elderly woman to the consulate, nor calls have yielded any assistance.

“Not once, on any of her many visits, was she even allowed to advance beyond the security guard at the entrance of the consulate building to speak with an employee on the inside. Instead, she was left to stand outside in the winter cold, being casually dismissed with an insincere promise by the security guard that somebody will call her about the matter, or she was given a telephone number to call that they know rarely gets answered, if ever,” the family members complained.

According to the relatives, the biggest clue as to what transpired with the document was an indication from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs worker here that the consulate was at fault but was trying pin the blame on the courier company.

The relatives say the consulate is claiming that the courier company which was contracted to deliver the passport to the elderly woman misplaced it after going to her address and not finding her there to sign for it.

Several phone calls later they said their elderly relative was told by a consulate representative in May that she should travel to a shipping centre connected to the courier company to collect the document as it had been found.

However, her expectations turned to despair when she was told by personnel at the courier company that her passport was returned to the consulate, and she should contact them to collect it there.

The relatives say up to the point of their communication with this newspaper, no move has been made by the consulate to have the document replaced despite a directive from the foreign affairs ministry for a letter to be written requesting redress in the form of replacement cost for the passport, and reimbursement for travel expenses.

“We were told that the consulate would then use that letter to make a claim on the courier company to pay all associated costs as they are responsible for the missing passport. The letter was submitted on May 15, 2024, a day after the request was made, and still nothing has happened, other than hearing from the courier that they had returned the passport to the consulate,” the relatives said.

The family members said having exhausted all other avenues without getting answers, they have turned to the media to draw attention to their plight, “so that neither my mother nor any other Jamaican may ever have to again suffer this very demeaning, disrespectful, and hostile treatment”.

The
Observer was shown several e-mail exchanged between a relative and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In one e-mail in May the ministry official, in apologising for the situation, said the courier company has taken full responsibility for the missing passport and has expressed its willingness to undertake the related cost associated with replacing it.