EL PASO, Texas -- U.S. citizens will need a passport to return from Mexico after June 1, and a new passport office will be built in El Paso to address the increased demand.

Hundreds of people waited outside the El Paso County Courthouse hoping that their name is the next one to be called. Some arrived at 5 a.m.

"They make you wait and wait," said Cecilia Melendez, of the lower valley. "And it's just a lot of waiting."

With paperwork in hand, they sit, stand or nap outside. But when their name is called, they move inside where the waiting game for a passport only continues.

"It shouldn't take that long," said Melendez. "It's a passport."

After more than five hours, Cecilia Melendez finally made it to the finish line.

"Well it's actually tiring and boring," she said. "And, you know, you have a lot of stuff to do, and you can't get it done because you're here trying to get a passport."

The passport office at the courthouse processes an average of 400 applications a day. At 2 p.m. Wednesday, they started turning people away for the day because the list of applicants was already too long to handle.

To help with the increased demand, the U.S. Department of State is issuing $2.15 million for a full-service passport agency in El Paso. But it's not scheduled to open until May 2010.

"Obviously there's lag time in terms of getting it up and hiring the personnel and all of those kinds of things," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. "But the important thing is that we're getting it."

But that doesn't help those who want a passport before June 1, when it's needed to return from Mexico.

"It is a long time from now," said Melendez. "And the deadline is getting closer."

Congressman Reyes said he first made the request for an El Paso passport office in 2007, expecting an increase in demand. But he said it wasn't recognized under the George W. Bush administration.