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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."
i was able to cross the border just by telling the customs agent where i was going and for how long..
MABASPLOOM!
"Goodbye, my Canadian friends."
"Goodbye, those funky round flat bacon, hockey teams.."
"Goodbye, to those maple leaf brothers."
The door will go from wide-open to slightly ajar....
(sigh)
I grew up in Buffalo, NY so going back and forth to Canada was as regular an occurence as going to the mall. Only once was I asked for any kind of ID whatsoever, and that was because I was with a British citizen. Usually they would just ask you "Citizen of what country" and if you said "USA" they would wave you in.
Sometimes I think that this might actually happen.
Consider this: on one of my regular drives, it's not unusual for me to be pulled over, asked for identification, where I was coming from, and where I'm headed to, and if the officer doesn't like my answers (or I decline to answer), I get to wait until they've checked my ID and vehicle information over.
Seriously, having my US Passport is handy (and I'm about as honky-appearing as they come, I feel sorry for the foreign-appearing folks around here)
Where does this happen? No, this isn't the desert Southwest. This is Interstate 91 in Vermont, 100 miles from the US-Canada border.
The fact that Canada has laws against opinions that are contrary to popularly accepted historical views is enough to scare me from going.
How Canada treated Ernst Zundel should be enough to send a chill down anyone's spine, no matter if you share his extermist views or nor.
The EU, and the rest of the world, should call the American's bluff on this one.. just not produce the new funky passports to appease the US.
Further, I hope Canada reciprocates and requires americans to have valid passports.
Sounds like a plan for a series of protests against this policy, if people feel strongly enough about it. Pick a day, and a time, and forget your passport. Have literature on each of your cars... (I think it would work better at land crossings where you can tie up more people)...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I'm SO sure that people living in Detroit who go over to Casino Windsor.. then to return will find themselves barred from the country without a passport.
Not gonna happen.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
You are correct, but your figures were assuming that the family only takes one out-of-country trip every 5 years. The real tourist money probably comes from people that travel more often. Those people (families) will have up-to-date passports anyway (even for the kids), and it won't be a matter of getting a new passport, but just bringing your current passport. Most people I know have a valid passport at all times anyway, for one reason or another.
As you say, this will decrease the number of "impulse tourists" who don't otherwise travel abroad, but I doubt this will put a serious dent in the US tourism budget. Those people will probably just deal with the longer line at the border to get the proper tourist card or whatever.
I have to wonder if one motivation for this change is that it might make it tougher for Americans to dodge future drafts.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Seriously. They've already shown they'll use whatever loopholes they can find in the Bill of Rights. Like right now, we've got several thousand people incarcerated on the territory of an unfriendly power, because it'd be illegal to incarcerate them anywhere else!
I am Canadian citizen, and was born in a Muslim country. I daily commute to a US university. In post 9/11 , everyday I am fingerprinted and photographed and back ground check. This whole process takes around 3 hours everyday. By now i know the names of all the US border inspectors. I have come to know now that some Canadians-Americans are more white than others.
I'm up in Bellingham, a mere 20 miles from the border. People are really worried about this change, as we get thousands of tourists and business visitors on a daily basis. In addition to requiring passports, other articles have indicated the border guard intends to require more paperwork to be filled out.
The border crossing has no way to process the number of people who cross daily. There is literally no where for people to park while they're filling out forms, and there is not enough staff or lanes to smoothly handle the change. As a local put it, the first day there will be cars parked for 10 miles. Within a week, they will be gone...because no one will be coming to the US.
None of these changes would have stopped the 9/11 terrorists. I am beginning to wonder if the real reason behind the Patriot Act and the draconian changes to our border checkpoints is to create a Fortress America, that has no contact with the outside world. Won't that be a pleasant joy to live in.
I worked answering the phones for the US Consulate in Toronto for a summer, and it happens all the time. I got lots of calls fom people in just such situations. Hell up to last year anyway lots of you guys were comming into Canada without even bringing any photo ID. I mean thats just sad right? Well I digress... If you lose what ever documentation you needed to get back into the US go to the consulate. If you lost it in the US, report it missing. Very simple.
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
US/Canada is the worlds largest ungarded border. There is absolutely no way to secure it. Requiring passports to travel across it can only inconveniance the honest and law abiding. Or, as the movie "Canadian Bacon" so chillingly put it - Canadians... they walk among us.
bance.net
I live in Detroit and when I was younger (read: 19 & 20 years old) I used to cross the border to hit up the bars in Windsor. Before 9/11, all I needed was my license and a copy of my birth certificate. After 9/11, its nearly impossible to get across without a Passport. Your license and copy of your birth certificate will not get you across anymore. Furthermore, your license and your real birth certificate does work but the border guards will harass you. So it looks like the US is adopting the policy of the Detroit border for the rest of its crossings.
[insert lame joke here]
Last summer we crossed in to Canada from the U.S. and back again at the Grand Portage MN crossing. Getting into Canada and back into the U.S. was a "piece of cake." The Canadian authority was a young man - maybe 21 or 22 if he was looking young for his age. He simply asked a series of questions (a couple of which were unexpected and I assume were part of the security screening process) and welcomed us to Canada and let us go.
What was interesting about that crossing was what any geek is likely to notice. As you approach the station there are cameras and lights - I'm sure that they use some recognition software and run you license plate before you ever even get close to the guard shack. Then as you pick your lane there are these posts that have a couple of convenient slots that I'm sure are also hiding cameras. The driver and the undersides of the vehicle are photographed as you slowly approach the shack.
On the return trip, the US Customs agent steps out of the shack, writes down your license plate and requests ID from you. He talks to you briefly asking a few simple questions. Didn't take more than a few seconds. But it was all manual! Clearly, at this crossing at least, the Canadians have out-spent us and out-classed us security-wise.
As someone who lives in Michigan, this ruling does make a big difference. Canada is literally a 20 minute drive from where I live, unlike Japan.
It's not unusal to hear of someone travelling to Windser on a friday night. It's not unusual for a Canadian to shop at our stores or working next to us.
A 6 month wait is going to have a serous effect on both our economies.
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
To think, we Americans used to scoff at the idea of having a passport required to travel internally, like the Soviet Union used to require its citizens to have. (And which Russia still has).
Now, it's being justified by the building of the interstate highway system. In the US.
Internal passports are generally considered a mark of a tyranny.
Kto kogo, tovarish w9ofa?
How fitting. It seems that our passport office is lax with security. How will this affect the US policy?
Full article: Auditor says Canada's security systems still too weak
The tighter the grip using passports the greater the likeihood they'll get the people to eventually accept a National Identity Card so everywhere you go even inside the US can be tracked.
It just shows another clear example of the governments agenda for the future and its all about tracking obviously.
Another invasive thing now they want to be able to use the black boxes in people's car for insurance data purposes in legal cases. Most people aren't even aware that new cars have these devices built in and are recording everything.
Business Voyeur
If we really cared . . . there wouldn't have been a whole bunch of "Viva Bush" billboards all along the New Mexica and Arizona border crossing regions. Ever really wonder why the number of illegals entering our country has increased since Bush has been in office?
Fishbowl has this all backwards. He portrays the Cuban missile batteries as a hostile act, against an innocent USA. Rather it was the predictable counter to a US launched invasion. The CIA, in a case of bad intelligence analysis, hired, trained, planned and equipped a disastrous invasion of Cuba.
The only reason we didn't previously need one for coming from Canada is because it used to be safe to assume people coming through Canada had a good reason to be here....
Then terrorists started coming in through Canada because it was so easy.
Long story short: You want to leave the country? Get a passport so we'll know you have a right to come back without further hassle.
Would bringing your birth certificate, social security card, and state ID allow you to enter, or would they make you stay in Canada for two weeks while you went through all the bureaucracy to get a passport?
No, it won't be enough anymore. Why? Because state ID's are easy to fake. Especially to someone who isn't necessarily a resident of a given state. How reliable do you think it is for someone at the border to have to check each and every ID to make sure it matches one of the 50 valid formats that we have? Personally, I'd rather have one, reliable, reasonably difficult to counterfeit, piece of evidence that's easy to recognize for what it is and easy to spot if it's fake.
I personally don't like this idea. Living in the Detroit area, I've gone over to the Windsor side countless times! This is going to be a major inconvenience for people on both sides of the border. Cross border shopping and entertainment are very common things! People just go on the spur of the moment. Like there's a lot of great bars in Windsor. I especially enjoyed those when I was 19! But now I see a lot of cross border activities going away. Because there's this new "tax" on border crossings. Passports aren't cheap people! I don't have one, because I can't see paying that much for one. Since the only place I go is Canada. A lot of people aren't going to bother getting one... Because not only is it expensive, it's also a pain in the ass to get one. If they do go through with this, I think they should come out with a $20 "citizenship card" or something that you can get at your local security of state. Otherwise it's just going to be a major pain in the ass for everyone and it's going to hurt the economy on both sides of the border. This has to be the most idiotic thing I've ever heard of. I've always felt that we should have an open border with Canada. Why can't the US - Canada border be like the EU? I mean c'mon, Canada is not a third world country! I don't see what the problem is. But anyways... I'll be getting my passport soon, since I do cross the border quite often. I have a lot of friends on the Canadian side.
Indeed. I'm reminded of the story of a New Brunswick couple who had their mail stopped for a while. They're Canadian citizens living on Canadian soil, but the only road to their home curves through American territory. One of those sleepy little border communities; they've lived there for over 50 years. In 2003 the American customs agents started "cracking down" on the couple -- in addition to stopping their mail and their newspaper, they also refused permission for any of their family to cross the border to visit them and even threatened to arrest the man for illegally crossing the border. Story #1 Story #2.
One can only dread the kind of hassles people like that will go through now.
Shut out from the US and stuck in Canada? I fail to see the downside here. I mean between the high quality beer and weed plus "Hockey Night in Canada" and "The Nature of Things" I'm thinking about retiring there. =)
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
That's because all of your countries are the size of one of our football stadiums.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
That's all well and fine, but the fact is that the majority of us Americans lack a passport.
Umm, I'd say the numbers look a lot different when you look at Americans that actually travel internationally.
For those leaving the borders, a passport is a reasonable requirement.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
You also need a US Visa to transit through the USA. A Croatian friend of mine on her way from the UK to visit a friend in Jamaica was SENT BACK TO THE UK because she didn't have a visa for the USA. All she needed to do was sit in (be locked in) the transit lounge for an hour. What a fucked up country.
Personally, as a British citizen (and one involved in the fight against ID cards here), I resent the prospect of being fingerprinted, and treated like a common criminal, so much that I will not travel to the USA. I have nothing to hide, but I know that once fingerprints are on record, they will never be deleted, and I value my privacy. As a consequence, our family has not holidayed in the USA since, and this will cost the USA $10,000+ in lost income over a few years. Hopefully, the Democrats will change the policy back when GWB is finally kicked out.
What happened to the USA? It was a free country with ideals, and now it is becoming a tyranny.
"I don't care. It only affects those who have something to hide."
Welcome to Soviet America. Please produce your papers.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Seems like you Canadians are pretty lucky to have a fairly 'well-behaved' border with the US.
Imagine what would happen when you had a border like the community of Baarle, where the post office determines the citizenship of a house by the country its *front door* is in. Corners of fields, streets and even houses can all be in different countries. A farmer can plough across three borders all in the same field.
Map: http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/baarle.htm
Pics: http://grenzen.150m.com/baarleGB.htm
As an American, I have to ask ... just what did our Northern friends do to deserve this? Oh, I forgot: it's to stop terrorists. Sure. But after we have four or five years of this additional foolishness behind us, I'll wager that not a single terrorist will have been apprehended or kept from entering the U.S. Probably it will work about as well as England's fetish with video cameras.
Parent is right. As an international student with an Indian passport I travel twice a year from Toronto to Bangalore which amounts to spending about $3000-$4000 becuase i always travel during peak tourist times which are summer holidays and Christmas.
Tickets from New York to Bangalore would garner savings on the order of $500-$800, but I'd rather not travel through a country that requires me to have a transit bloody visa simply becuase I'm going to be in their airport lounge for about ~3 hours between flights. Moreover having an Indian passport requires me to go through an Interview at the American Consulate in Toronto just for the Transit visa!(scheduling an interview takes about 3-4weeks during busy seasons)
It's lunacy/paranoia like this that has compelled me to avoid even holidaying in the US in the 3 years that I've been in Canada.
For as long as I can remember, and I believe since the foundation of the Irish Free State, it has not been necessary for Irish or British citizens to show any identification in travelling from Ireland to Britain or back again. This is because there is completely free travel between Ireland and Britain, not just for citizens. For much, if not most, of this time, some Irish nationals constituted a potential terrorist threat to Britain, much more so than those Canadians may pose the US.
So the 'loophole' you refer to may be less of an accident and more of a common occurance between friendly countries than you believe.
Canada is culturally closer to Europe at this point than the US... and the US will be punishing them for that at every opportunity.
;-)
Heh. Just wait 'til we JOIN the EU and watch their knickers twist, then.
Actually, it's a pretty good idea... unscientific sample, of course, but most of my friends support it. And the funny thing about that is that, through some weird chance, most of us were born in the States but are now either landed immigrants or Canadian citizens. All mighty glad to be here, too.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
I had it worse. I was flying from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Sydney, Australia, with a change of plane in LAX. I had to allow 6 hours for the transit, as LAX doesn't believe in transit lounges between airlines (or something).
So I had to go through immigration to enter the States, walk the 5 minutes to the other terminal, go back through immigration and get on the other plane. For non-US citizens, the LAX immigration queues really suck (usually 2 immigration counters per planeload of people).
"..and how long do you intend to remain in the United States?"
"Umm.. about 4 hours"
LAX has to be my least favourite airport in the world. Unfortunately, almost every flight from Australia to North or Central America passes through there.
> Expect a lot of airline traffic to start avoiding US hubs as a result.
It's already happening.
--Phil.
What about those illegal Mexicans crossing our borders in the south? What will our American government do to stop illegal entry into our nation?
that sounds a lot like when I went up to Vancouver a few months ago.
I didn't have a passport and thanks to the US's wonderful mail system I didn't have my birth certificate either (something about paying for priority mail to have it take 2 WEEKS). We decided to go anyways. Worse case scenario I had wasted about 7 hours of my life.
Anyhow, we get there and they ask where we are going. We answer Vancouver. They ask why. We tell them we're visiting friends. They ask if we have a gun. We (surprised) say no. They tell us to have a nice trip.
About 3 km up the road I turn to my friend Chris and say "does that mean if we have two gunS we would have rightfully said no?" He laughs and we enjoy Canada.
Four days later and it's time to go home. We get back to the border and the US Border Guard asks for our proof of citizenship and if we have anything to declare. We answer "two liters of gin" as I hand over a drivers license and social security card and my friend hands over a passport. He doesn't even act like he cares... he fills out a little piece of paper and tells us to take it inside. We follow orders and then I realize I'm being forced through immigration. The guy inside takes my ID and runs what I can only assume was a background check. After that he spends about 4 minutes chastising me.
Long story short I got back in. I knew they'd let me in eventually... even if it ment waiting till morning when they could call the state and verify that I was, in fact, born here. What scares me is that, if I read it right, that may not be the case in a few years. What am I supposed to do if I get stuck at the border? I can't work in Canada and I can't get home.
Jeremy Logan's Website.
Actually under US law (FCC?) it is illegal for a passenger to attack a hijacker.
If you take a closer look, you may notice that the expiration date is not the same as her birthday. Some states use that as a way of indicating non-US citizen.