Next up for border crossings

IT’S time to apply for your passport if you’ll be traveling to the Caribbean, Canada or Mexico after Dec. 31. That’s when a new rule will require air and cruise passengers to present the documents when entering the U.S. from these areas. Those returning by land from Canada or Mexico won’t need passports -- at least not yet.

Travel agents and others in the industry are advising travelers to get passports, even as moves are afoot in Congress to delay the deadline.

Most of her clients don’t know about the new requirement and are “flabbergasted” when she tells them about it, said Kathryn Sudeikis, president of the American Society of Travel Agents and vice president of corporate relations at All About Travel in Mission, Kan.

No wonder. The deadlines and rules keep changing. Here’s what has happened so far: Congress in 2004 declared that by Jan. 1, 2008, all travelers would need to present passports or another secure document when crossing into the U.S.

Seeking to phase in the law, the government first set Dec. 31, 2005, as the enforcement date for travelers entering the U.S. by air and sea from the Caribbean, and Dec. 31, 2006, from Canada and Mexico. A year later it would apply to land crossings.

After various businesses and visitor bureaus protested that the changes were hasty and would discourage tourism and commerce, the dates were changed. Now it’s Jan. 1, 2007, for air and sea passengers from the Caribbean, Canada and Mexico, and Jan. 1, 2008, for land crossings.

Even those dates may be in doubt.

In the U.S. Senate, amendments to delay the new passport requirements until June 1, 2009, have been attached to funding bills for the departments of State and Homeland Security, which jointly oversee enactment of the 2004 law. The bills, approved June 29 by the Senate Appropriations Committee, are expected to be taken up by Congress after it returns Monday from recess.

Time is running out for officials to finish the needed paperwork and allow for public comment, review and revisions, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In late May, the GAO said a notice of rulemaking, which starts the process, hadn’t been filed.

As of the Travel section’s Tuesday deadline, it still hadn’t. Spokespersons Angela Aggeler at the State Department and Jarrod Agen at Homeland Security said they expected the notice to be published soon, but neither would give a date.

As for the 2004 law’s final deadline, Jan. 1, 2008, when travelers returning by land to the U.S. from Canada or Mexico must present passports or a new document, called a PASS card, some progress is being made, albeit slowly.

The PASS card, which stands for People Access Security Service, is expected to cost less than $50, versus $97 for an adult passport. “We hope to have them in production by the end of the year or early next year,” Aggeler said.

A major issue, Aggeler and Agen said, is whether the new card’s computer chip will be readable from a few inches away or up to 30 feet; the two departments use different technologies.

The days are fast disappearing when you can flash a driver’s license and a smile to cross the border.

To learn how to apply for a passport, visit www.travel.state.gov/passport.