United States Passport

United States Passport

United States passports are passports issued to citizens and non-citizen nationals of the United States of America. They are issued exclusively by the U.S. Department of State. Besides issuing passports (in booklet form), also limited use passport cards are issued by the same organization subject to the same requirements.

U.S. passport booklets are valid for travel by Americans anywhere in the world, although travel to certain countries and/or for certain purposes may require a visa and the U.S. itself restricts its nationals from traveling to or engaging in commercial transactions in certain countries. They conform with recommended standards (i.e., size, composition, layout, technology) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). There are five types of passport booklets; as well, the Department of State has issued only biometric passports as standard since August 2007, though non-biometric passports are valid until their expiry dates. United States passports are property of the United States Government.

Read more about United States Passport:  History, Administration, Types of Passports, Languages, Biometric Passport, Gallery of Historic Images

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    “Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,—never hear of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “In the United States, though power corrupts, the expectation of power paralyzes.”
    —John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)

    “The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers’ document. It is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. Its prescriptions are clear and we know what they are ... but life is always your last and most authoritative critic.”
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    “Whenever [Leonard Bernstein] entered or exited a country he would fill in on his passport form not composer or conductor, but musician. Of course people in the press spent a lot of Lenny’s life telling him what he should have done; he should have been a concert pianist, he should have composed more.... And people wouldn’t let him live his own life. But he created his own career, in his own image.”
    —John Mauceri (b. 1945)