National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden has reportedly travelled from Hong Kong to Russia on 23 June 2013 with the use of his American passport. But the United States state department has since invalidated his US passport and the institution has asked other countries to prevent Snowden from travelling. According to one of Snowden’s lawyers, he has applied for asylum in Ecuador. Snowden is wanted on charges of espionage.

If the US state department has revoked his passport, how does Snowden intend to travel? Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, stated that Snowden is in possession of a “special refugee travel document” which has been issued by Ecuador.

President and chief executive officer of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lavinia Limon said:

It’s really up to the receiving country whether they wish to accept someone into their country without a passport.

In the United States, 60,000 refugees enter the country yearly with only a few having passports. Each refugee is interviewed face-to-face by officials from the Department of Homeland Security to determine if the individual is truly a refugee or not. I-94 documents are issued to act as a passport and each individual has travel arrangements made to travel to the US. Limon said:

Let’s say we’re taking people from Malaysia and they have to stop in Hong Kong before they can get to LA. Hong Kong recognises these are US travel documents and lets them through.

Some countries have arrangements where citizens can travel between countries without having a passport. American citizens can travel to US territories without having a passport. But for air travel, Americans need passports. There are however some exceptions when American citizens travel to North American countries such as the Caribbean, where a passport card instead of a passport book can be used.

[Source: BBC News]