IMMIGRATION IN BELIZE MORDIDA, OR NEW FEE, OR WHAT?

INCOMING E MAIL TRAFFIC is indicating, THAT IMMIGRATION WILL RE-PROCESS YOUR BELIZE PASSPORT TO THE NEW CARICOM PASSPORT, IF YOU PAY $100.

Not sure if this is a bribe or not? But at least two people have informed me that if you pay them $100 Bz you get your passport renewed in 24 hours. Nobody mentioned whether you got a government receipt for this expediting service or not. Everybody else like my grandson, waiting to renew his 4th Belize Passport based on first come first served public service, gets to wait indefinitely. ( five years waiting now ) I guess they figure sooner or later YOU WILL PAY the extra $100 mordida for public service? If you are honest and expect to be treated FAIRLY you apparently are not going to get treated by IMMIGRATION AT ALL? I wonder if that money is going into the GENERAL TREASURY, or is a SCAM inside the bureaucracy?
The business about having to have a NATURALIZATION CERTIFICATE for PASSPORT CARRYING BELIZEANS, or roots people, still is leaving me puzzled. So far, no explanation has been forthcoming?
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To keep you all informed (because what I was told by the first officer I spoke with may have been misinformation) I was able to speak with a Sr. Immigration Officer at the Belize City Passport office this morning and she said all I need is to fill out an application and show my expired passport for renewal, and that I can do that in the Belize City office on Mahogany St. Extension.
I was dreading the Belmopan Office just now because I assumed the workers there would be overwhelmed with the volume of work they have been dealing with the past few weeks.

Will be nice to have a 10 year passport.

Thanks,
Lynn

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 8:52 AM, anne wade wrote:

I just picked up my new passport on Thursday. It took two weeks to process with a $50 fee. All I needed to do was fill out a one page application and present my expired passport. When the last passport was for five years, the new Belize Caricom Passport is valid for 10 years.

I must say however, that my visit to the office Thursday gave me a first hand view of the nationalization process of our new Belizean brothers and sisters. Quite a different experience from seeing it on the news. It must be near overwhelming for the officers working at Immigration and Nationality. The lines extended out the door of the building, the parking lot was jam packed, there were people milling about, and there was a constant arrival and departure of pickup trucks and SUV's. Outside the immigration office had the buzzing air of a well organized voting station on election morning.

From: Eve
To: lynn . ; Belize Breeze ; Bz-Culture
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: Bz-Culture: STARTING SIX YEARS FOR BELIZE IMMIGRATION TO RENEW OLD PASSPORT.

Lynn,

I live in SI and whenever anyone I know here needs to have their passport renewed (I did last year), they/we go into Belmopan ... there is a separate office in one section of the Immigration Dept. building that is the Passport Office.

EA
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Thanks for the info. Will pass it on to my grandson and mother up in Miami.
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