New Border Crossing Rules Take Effect Next Year
Most travelers will need passports or enhanced forms of identification.
By Martha Lynn Craver, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
April 18, 2008
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New ID rules for land and sea border crossings become effective June 1, 2009. Travelers coming from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda will have to show a passport or other form of secure ID to enter the U.S. The rules are part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. The new rules "will continue to encourage cross-border travel and trade while at the same time decreasing identity theft and fraud," says Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
Air travelers have had to show passports or other secure ID documents when crossing a U.S. border since January 2007. Congress ordered a delay in implementing the new requirements for land and sea crossings until 2009 after heavy lobbying by border communities and business interests. They claimed more time was needed to develop alternatives to the costly passport and feared disruptions of the billions of dollars in trade that flows across U.S. borders.
Several alternatives to passports will be accepted, including passport cards, new enhanced driver's licenses and Trusted Traveler Programs cards, such as NEXUS, SENTRI and FAST. The State Department is now accepting applications for the wallet size passport card. It will cost $45 for adults and $35 for kids under 16, compared with $95 for a passport. The card is good only for crossing U.S. borders by land and sea. The department expects to begin issuing the first of these cards this June. For details, go to http://travel.state.gov.
Washington is the first state to issue the new enhanced driver's license (EDL). New York, Vermont and Arizona are working on EDLs, and other border states are expected to do likewise. Canadian provinces also are working on their own EDLs, with British Columbia leading the way, to be followed by Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec, Yukon and the Atlantic provinces.
Both the EDL and the passport card will have security features to prevent counterfeiting and will include Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to help speed the entry process at border crossings.
U.S. or Canadian citizens ages 18 and under in school groups or other organized factions will still be able to enter the U.S. with proof of citizenship alone.
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Reader Comments (2)
Posted by: John Doe at 04/18/2008 08:57:41 AM
RFID tags in EDL's aren't there to "help speed the entry process.." They're intended to track people and are an illegal invasion of our privacy rights and civil liberties. Don't accept them! John Doe
Posted by: Global Research at 04/18/2008 12:10:04 PM
On February 28, 2008, it was reported that BC made this move "in conjunction with Washington State," and that, "Ontario and other provinces with high-volume border crossings are expected to follow suit in the near future. Under the U.S.' Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), passports will be required for all travelers entering the U.S. starting June 2009, but RFID-enabled EDLs are being introduced on a voluntary basis as an acceptable alternative to speed up border crossings." The report elaborated that, "the Real ID Act enacted in 2005 calls for the harmonization of drivers' licenses across states in the U.S," which are, in turn being harmonized with Canada’s licenses, and that the real agenda with this is to create a North American ID card. Andrew Clement, a professor of information studies at the University of Toronto was quoted in the article as saying: The EDL scheme is seen as a way to sneak it [the ID card] through the back door by turning state licenses, through U.S.-wide harmonization with biometrics, into de facto identity cards. And the Privacy Commissioner has pointed out that Canada's EDLs will be made compatible from a system point of view with Real ID standards, so Canadians will in fact be enrolled in the U.S. apparatus via licenses. There are several steps to get there but this seems to be the direction it's heading towards