U.S. budget bill delays Canadian border passport requirement

Wikson Ring, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MONTPELIER, Vt. - Passports won't be necessary for Americans and Canadians entering the United States by land until mid-2009 - a year later than planned - if a budget bill passed Thursday by Congress is approved by President George W. Bush.

A provision of a budget bill passed Thursday pushes back by a year the plan by the Department of Homeland Security to require passports from border-crossers from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean as a way of strengthening national security.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, said he expects Bush to sign the bill, despite the administration's insistence on implementing the passport requirement next summer.

The passport requirement has been a sore point in Vermont and other border states.

"This delay is very, very helpful and gives us a chance to do the right thing as opposed to the quickest thing," said Bill Stenger, president of Jay Peak ski area, which is near the Canadian border.

"It's a major step. I give (Leahy) a tremendous amount of credit for getting some common sense into this whole situation."

Last summer, Leahy and U.S. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska introduced the legislation to delay the passport requirement. The House of Representatives passed it the day after the Senate and the legislation cleared Congress Thursday as part of a multiagency budget bill.

"The passport requirement is the wrong answer to the wrong question. It creates major hassles for law-abiding citizens and communities all across the longest peaceful border in the world," Leahy said in a statement.

"It adds nothing to our security, while costing Vermont and our national economy billions in lost commerce."

The Western Hemisphere Travel Iniative, as the plan is known, is designed to close a major security vulnerability on U.S. borders, said Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa.

"We've always been committed to moving forward deliberately to implement the land and sea portion of WHTI just as we did with the air portion," said Kudwa.

"We anticipate a final rule in the coming weeks and phasing in elements of the plan in the summer of '08."

She said full implementation would follow "as soon as possible consistent with the law."

Even though the passport requirement is likely to be postponed, Vermonters and others will still need birth certificates or similar identification to enter the United States by land beginning Jan. 31.

In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday, Leahy called the birth certificate requirement "unwise, ill-considered and counterproductive." Leahy asked Chertoff for the legal authority to unilaterally impose the birth certificate requirement.

The passport requirement is part of efforts by Homeland Security to tighten security at the borders.

But people along the Vermont-Quebec border say a passport requirement could disrupt the long-established practices of moving freely from one country to another and cost businesses millions of dollars.

Leahy said the passports would stifle commerce, while doing little to protect the country.

"Instead, for only a fraction of that expense, we could and should be beefing up our intelligence and working with Canada to seek out potential terrorists long before they even get near our borders," Leahy said.

Leahy said before any requirements for increased documentation take effect, Homeland Security should have the technical infrastructure ready to implement it and that technology would have to be shared with the governments of Canada and Mexico.

© The Canadian Press, 2007