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U.S. to Require Passport To Re-Enter Country
The Hobo writes "The CBC is reporting that starting in 2007, most Canadians will require a passport to cross into the United States and by 2008 Americans who crossed freely into Canada will be unable to return to the United States without a passport. The tougher new rules still allow Canadians to cross without being fingerprinted, but every person from any other country will be required to submit to fingerprinting." From the article: "Currently, Canadians and Americans are able to enter the United States with little more identification than a driver's licence or a birth certificate, though a passport has sometimes made it simpler to satisfy immigration officers at the border."
Because, as we all know, passports are never forged. Ever.
I don't see how we are more "protected" than the current system.
Shouldn't be too long before interstate travel in the US requires a passport. That'll finally put an end to criminals moving to another state to hide from the law.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
You didn't read the article, did you? "And by 2008, most Americans who visit Canada won't be able to re-enter their country without a passport." You sure *will* need a passport to come home. I don't know what will happen if you don't have it, but you can bet it won't be pleasant or speedy.
to NOT travel to the USA
come to canada instead - all of the beauty - none of the ph34r
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
The CBC is reporting that starting in 2007, most Canadians will require a passport to cross into the United States and by 2008 Americans who crossed freely into Canada will be unable to return to the United States without a passport. The tougher new rules still allow Canadians to cross without being fingerprinted, but every person from any other country will be required to submit to fingerprinting.
Now, it's my understanding that a sovereign country can control their borders in any way they see fit. Perhaps there's some sort of rights argument to be made about the americans who need a passport to re-enter their country, although it doesn't seem like a major issue, but Canadians.. heck, I'm a Canadian, and it doesn't really effect our rights. America can do whatever they want with their borders to non-citizens. If they don't want to let us come in, heck, that really is their perogative.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
it's sad but true, the Bush administration is alienating canada like no other administration in US history..
from the beef ban to the tarifs on soft wood, now tightening the border only makes canadians not want to vacation in the US.. or for that matter have anything to do with americans.. which is a shame really.
MABASPLOOM!
I submitted the story, and forgot to include this as food for thought:
Think of a typical family of four. My own just did this. Say this family wants to go to Disneyland from Canada. As it stands, my parents were able to go with the young'ns without a problem, and none of them have passports. Tourists from Canada are a part of the US economy. Had the passports been required, it would have cost: 87 + 87 + 37 + 37, plust GST, which is a total of 265.36$, and that doesn't even include the trouble of finding a guarantor and taking passport photos which cost more than normal photos. This is on top of any other travel costs, likely for a single trip. This will most definitely deter Canadians from visiting and spending money in the US. Not to mention that passports take at least 3 weeks to get, ruling out any sudden decisions to say pick a US ski package to a Canadian one. I personally enjoy taking trips to the US, but this makes it much harder, and I'm certain this scenario will be repeated.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
As long as they have proper documentation and identification. Otherwise its...
"I'm sorry sir, but your papers are not in order.."
U.S. citizens get pretty pissed off when you try and fingerprint them as they enter another country. And more countries will follow suit with this. The principle of reciprocality is enforced by most nations on this planet....so get ready to be fingerprinted U.S. citizens...you treat guests in your country like criminals, and we'll treat you the same way if you ever come to ours...only we'll probably dick you around for 9 hours in the airport as a bit of payback.
Since when did producing a passport become the equivalent of a cavity search?
Idiotic statements like yours lead me to believe you are uneducated and don't understand the horrors that the Soviets put their citizens through.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Because the assholes who planebombed NYC and DC all had passports, were known terrorists, and were connected on the record with the assholes who bombed the WTC in 1993. Mohammed Atta's passport was somehow found fluttering atop the burning steel slag of the WTC - even tougher than the 2 planes' 4 blackbox recorders, which have never been reported found. I feel safer already.
--
make install -not war
But can a country deny entry to one of its own citizens? I can see US customs detaining US citizens for drug/weapon/not declaring duty offences, but actually denying an American citizen the right to enter their own country?
Oh nevermind, excuse me... Bin Laden is on the teevee again so it's time for our two minutes of Hate. I hear W Bush has a conference scheduled afterwards to talk about all the Peace his wars have brought, how the new anti-terrorism laws make America free, and how strong the country is are with a leader like himself.
After that, then I'll maybe have some time to listen to your lame 1984 analogies -- you paranoid nutcase.
501 Not Implemented
This is reflecting the new political reality that the current Administration and the ruling party in congress considers left-leaning first world nations as ideological enemies to be isolated and opposed on the global stage. It's a clear sign that the US considers open access to Canada and Canadian culture as being counterproductive to their ideals in reshaping America to the Dickensian nightmare of theocracy and plutocracy.
This isn't a security issue. This is an issue of punishing America's closest allies for following a different political destiny. It's to protect Michiganders and New Hampshirites from being exposed to affordable healthcare, gay rights and decrinminalized marijuana.
Don't think it's true? Look at the ruthless, relentless and sometimes threatening and bellicose criticism of Europe by the right-wing blogosphere, professional pundits, and administration officials like Rumsfeldt. Canada is culturally closer to Europe at this point than the US... and the US will be punishing them for that at every opportunity.
It's a new Berlin wall, to discourage cultural contamination. I can think of nothing more heartbreaking.
SoupIsGood Food
It also helps to be the right skin colour and accent, or at least not the "wrong" ones.
I get waved through all the time too. My cousin, on the other hand, has gotten his car ripped apart.
Exactly! Despite all the hand-wringing here, that's what this change is actually all about.
The formal rules for who can come and go haven't changed, what has changed is just the level of proof that a person has to supply in order to come into the country. Previously if a white, accent-free American went to Canada and upon returning said "I'm a citizen", he or she would be pretty much just let in. But if an arab-looking American with an accent went to Canada and upon returning said "I'm a U.S. citizen", do you think he or she would just waltz in? I doubt it. But do you think America really should let any person who says "I'm a U.S. citizen" waltz into the country with little or no proof?
This change "levels the field" by setting common, enforceable criteria for entering the country. If you have a valid U.S. passport or a foreign passport with an appropriate visa, you can come in, regardless of race, accent, or appearance. If you don't, well... I guess you'll be spending the afternoon at the U.S. consulate while they check you out more thoroughly.
P.S. Driver's licenses and birth certificates are essentially "no proof" as the former does not actually indicate citizenship or residency, the latter doesn't have a photo, neither has a standard format, and both are easy to fake.
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
My mother has had a US driver license for over 30 years. She was not, however, a US citizen for most of this time, she was a resident alien. Driver licenses are just that: licenses to operate a vehicle. They do not indicate citizenship, or even residency status.
The US lacks a citizen ID card like many nations have, so the only real document that works is a passport.
There's a lot of small towns near the border, on both sides with businesses have become dependant on the very easy and quick ability for people to pass back and forth across the border without the slightest hassle. I wonder if this change will dampen the economies of those small towns. Using a passport is only a small hassle, but it's a small hassle where previously there were none.
When I was a small child my family went on a car trip through the canadian rockies. The border guard was one guy in a booth not much larger than a photomat. There wasn't even a barrier gate across the road that lifted out of the way or anything like that, just a stop sign. This was the full extent of the border crossing questions:
guard (seeing family station-wagon): Hello folks, May I ask your purpose in entering Canada?
my Dad: sightseeing camping. (obvious from the car full of supplies).
guard: Are you planning on staying long?
my Dad: just two weeks.
guard: Do you have any guns or fruit? (What an odd combination of of questions)
my Dad - a bag of apples we just bought for lunch later.
guard: If you just bought them it should be okay. We're worried about the spread of fruit flies from further south but if you just bought them in washington they'll be fine.
guard: yup! Welcome to Canada. Have a wonderful trip.
my Dad - Don't you need to see some ID?
guard: I suppose if it will make you feel better.
The re-entry into the US was even more lax - The guard saw the license plates on the car were from the US, and asked, "Let's see - plates from Wisconsin - car packed for a camping trip - Coming back from a vacation I see? Okay - Welcome back, go on through..."
Sigh. Those were friendlier times.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
So now I'll need to get a passport - which costs $87, and must be renewed every 5 years - just to cross the border??!
Uhm.. no thanks. I think I'll just stay at home.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
You don't have any "right" to travel to another country and then re-enter without a passport.
Right...well, perhaps not. But history has been on the side of paperless travel, in particular with regards to Canada. They only began immigration checks on the US-Canada border in the 1950s (I remember reading somewhere that there were riots when this started, it was very controversial.) Since about the 1980s Congress has mandated a passport for Americans travelling from countries from outside of the Western Hemisphere. A lot of that rule still stands...I can go to just about any Carribbean country with my birth certificate, and even my home country of Costa Rica decided to cash in on the tourist dollars and allow Americans to travel there with just a birth certificate. It's possible that, if the US never required Americans to have a passport for re-entry, than neither would have the Japanese for your trips.
On a side note, apparently, the passport was created during World War I as a temporary document intended to prevent spies from crossing european borders. It was not a document viewed well...europeans were horrified by the idea that they would require documentation to go across borders. I'm amused by the bogus reasoning for its creation...it gives me a little satisfaction to know that people were as dumb then as they are now.
There are certainly people stopped from going one way or another on the US-Canadian border, but it still has not been proven that there's an aggregate security increase from documented crossing than without documented crossings. It's possible our time would be better spent doing different types of security checks than documentation checks.
Excuse me, but how do you think we feel about it? Any Americans with two neurons left to rub together to make a spark is saddened by the souring of our relationship with you. And not just you but just about every other country on the planet.
How would you like to be saddled with George Bush and have 52% of your fellows think he's just a great guy? And then try to blame you for their vote because you didn't come up with a better candidate. Try it for a while and see how it feels.
We're watching a country we love descend into ignorance, intolerance and fear.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I think his point was that they are restricting the rights of their own citizens to travel outside their borders. As in, you're only allowed to leave if we give you permission to leave. One of those things that they used to point the finger at Iraq about. One of those totalitarian things, you dig?
God damn that country scares me. Every day they look more and more like Germany in the 30s. Constant surveillance of its citizenry, living in a nice comfy womb of propaganda, secrets, secret police, imprisoning people without trial or accountability, ever increasing unification between the corporations and the goverment, the ever increasing religious rhetoric of the leadership, government rewriting science, I mean fuck. They're scary enough without having all the worlds nukes and a president that can't string his words together.
And the proud American moderators will bring this offensive post to -1 in a heartbeat.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
In particular:
How does that work? If you think of a passport as something you need to enter another country, then if you need to get into the US, then you are by definition coming from another country, so you would have taken your passport when entering that other country in the first place...so you'll still have your passport when you return to try to get into the US, right? Or are people leaving the US with their passports, and leaving their passports abroad when they come back?
As that's not likely :-), I assume it's really because American people don't generally think of Canada as 'another country' like they do with other countries? I mean, it's similar, has a land border, they (mostly) speak the same language, etc.
Or am I missing some other cultural effect?
Or, for another example, take China. I've only seen a little bit of China, the bit near Hong Kong. But you get a sense of just how quickly parts of China are growing when you go there.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)