Planning to visit the casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls? Have the Toronto Film Festival penciled in on your calendar? Thinking of driving to Alaska this summer? If you haven't applied for a passport yet, better not put it off. It won't be long before a passport will be required for all travel to and from the U.S. This week security will get a little tighter for U.S. citizens traveling home from Canada. Starting Thursday, January 31, you'll need proof of citizenship to cross America's northern border by land or sea. Passports are already required for air travel.
Under the new law, all travelers, including children, who do not have passports must show proof of citizenship, either a birth certificate or naturalization certificate, at land and sea crossings to re-enter the U.S. from Canada. Travelers 19 and older must also show government-issued photo identification, such as a driver's license or state ID. Children under 19 can travel with just a proof of citizenship for the time being.
"If you don't have these documents, it's gong to slow down your border clearance," said Mike Milne of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "We won't take verbal declarations of citizenship anymore. You'll have to go into a secondary-clearance area and be asked more questions. Ultimately, a U.S. citizen will get back into the United States, but it will certainly slow down the process."
The new law ends decades of a laissez-faire border crossing policy with our northern neighbors in which oral statements were acceptable on both sides. Since the September 11 tragedy, the U.S. has been moving to tighten its borders. This is just the newest implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which regulates travel between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico and Bermuda. Passports were to have been required for travel to and from Canada sometime this June, but public outcry over processing backlogs caused Congress to move that date back to June 2009. Thursday's new regulations are an interim move.
