The F.B.I. and the Central Intelligence Agency have been overwhelmed with background checks, delaying visas for months.
As a result, the extension of unemployment benefits will have to wait at least a week, and some Americans relying on jobless pay could see their checks delayed.
In recent years a gridlocked Washington has seemed to need the threat of drop-dead deadlines and potentially grave consequences — workers laid off, parks and monuments closing, services disappearing overnight, federal benefit checks delayed — to get anything done.
– Online porn age checks delayed.
Or do you prefer driving through traffic jams to an airport, security checks, delays and American air roulette with the under-staffed, over-worked, technologically handicapped air-traffic control system we now have?
A name check delay has held up his citizenship petition for two years.
Then the check-reading machines won't be able to read the check, delaying the processing time.
Last week I read a stress-inducing story in the Times about appalling passport-check delays at Milan airport; three days later, I walked through those selfsame passport gates with only a brief and courteous check.
But some cases drag on much longer because of background-check delays or because applications are misplaced, or notices are mailed to stateside addresses after an applicant has been deployed, causing appointments to be missed.
Air travel has become increasingly annoying and enervating: delayed flights, more restrictive rules on the size of carry-ons (anything bigger than a wallet may force a gate check), delayed or lost luggage, long check-in lines, etc.
