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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."
What's the big deal? Canadians and Americans still don't need passports to get home, nor do they need to worry about fingerprinting.
If you're an American without a passport, just come back through California, Mexico, and Arizona. The desert's hot, you'll pick up lots of dust, and after a few days' hiking, you'll have picked up a nice Mexican tan. Se Habla Espanol! You're in!
If you're a Canadian without a passport, remember that you're indistinguishable from the American as long as you remember to pronounce it "owwwwt" (like you stubbed your toe), instead of "oot" (like if you're going oot and aboot), and if you can pretend that Budweiser is beer for a few days. Grab a six-pack of Bud for your American friend and follow him across the desert. Then take a US domestic flight (for which no passport is required) to New York State. Go to the Six Nations Reserve and offer to haul some smokes 'n' booze in across the St. Lawrence. If it's winter, you can even walk home, eh?
Or remotely sniff the RFID off some other poor schlub and just use his passport.
Seriously, what's the big deal? Don't have a passport, go to Mexico, eh? :)
Because, as we all know, passports are never forged. Ever.
I don't see how we are more "protected" than the current system.
i was able to cross the border just by telling the customs agent where i was going and for how long..
MABASPLOOM!
Americans who crossed freely into Canada will be unable to return to the United States without a passport Damn, does that mean we're stuck with them then?
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.
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...
Then you need to go to the American embassy, and they'll help you re-enter the country. This is true for entry into the US from almost anywhere.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
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
Well if you see yourself as a part of a larger community, it can be construed as a rights issue. Really though it's no big deal - get a passport. The only people who will be hurt are the idiots that don't plan ahead, and then boohoo to the media about how unfair the system is.
It is telling, however, that Canada and the US, two of the most alike and intertwined countries on the planet, are moving apart, while at the same time the enormously diverse European Union acts in many ways like a single country.
Your Rights Offline is still YRO. Yay for spelling!
Be very very wary.... the War on Tourism will be a long hard road.... there may even be tourists living on your street. Your next door neighbor may be a tourist, report any suspicious activities. We will not stop until we have eliminated the scourge of touism from our land. They are all around you, checking out our national treasures.
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.
It's modded funny, but it's not really far from the truth.
Interstate travel in the US already requires full identification, logged permanently by the government -- that is, if you want to travel at a tolerable speed. Unless you're wealthy enough to afford a personal jet, you can't fly without the equivalent of showing a passport. (see freetotravel.org)
This situation is only getting worse. Even interstate buses and trains now usually require ID for ticket purchases.
As long as they have proper documentation and identification. Otherwise its...
"I'm sorry sir, but your papers are not in order.."
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
Canadians aren't the only ones they're alienating. I flew over to the US from an EU state on Sunday for a 2 week business trip and had to get my fingers scanned and a photo taken on entry into the country. I'm really very unhappy about being treated this way, and I'm sure everyone I was queueing with felt the same.
America has ceased to be a country that others might aspire to. Other countries have experienced terrorism for many decades without becoming so draconian, so it's funny that the US, the supposed land of the free, overreacted so dramatically.
It's a crying shame really...
It's so busy with tourists during your summer month.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
It's no big deal really, just sign in oneline.
Trust us.
by 2008 Americans who crossed freely into Canada will be unable to return to the United States without a passport
Has anyone asked Canada what they think about all the dickhead americans that didn't bring their passport with them being left in their country...american arrogance at it's best:
America: And if you don't bring your passport we won't let you back.
Canada: Hang aboot...don't we get a say in who get's to stay in our country and for how long?
America: Is that oil?
Canada: Oh shit
The thing that really fucking pisses me off is the fingerprinting of TRANSIT PASSENGERS PASSING THROUGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS.
Really folks, get a grip. You're just an anonymous airport with a transit lounge we sit in for an hour. The only difference between transit in Hong Kong or Singapore and LAX is that LAX is full of cunts who want to fingerprint you for no good reason.
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
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.
EXCUSE ME, where did this attitude and why have we come to this?
I remember when I was a kid, I was always told that one of the GREAT things about my country that made us better than the evil communists was that I could travel around my country without having to show my papers, without having to prove who I was, etc.
I was told horror stories of the Soviet Union, about how to go between republics I'd have to show my papers at a checkpoint so they could track who I was and where I was going. I was told how evil this was and how I was lucky to be born in the U.S.A. where we had freedom and liberty and didn't have to show our identification in daily life.
Twenty years later and I have to show my ID whenever I travel. I guess since we don't have the Soviet Union anymore, so we don't have to be better than them.
We live in sad times.
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.
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.