Passport requirement plan for border may be scrapped
Business people in upstate New York welcome DHS’s apparent retreat on the U.S.-Canada border passport requirement
A proposed passport requirement for re-entry to the United States from Canada which has sparked a firestorm of opposition across the northern border may be scrapped. This, at least, was the between-the-lines reading of DHS secretary Michael Chertoff’s words during a visit Monday to the Buffalo area. Chertoff met with local officials of the Peace Bridge Authority and backed off on what had been an ironclad insistence on passports.
He did reinforce the end of “oral declarations” at the northern border to establish citizenship and again nixed proposals for U.S. inspection facilities in Canada, but he said he recognized the need to maintain a free flow of commerce and tourism at places such as the bustling Peace Bridge. “The last thing we want to do is interfere with what you see behind us,” Chertoff said at the bridge. “But on the other hand,… we have to drive ourselves to a system where we have reliable identification so that our inspectors can do the job we ask, which is to protect our country.”
In what must be music to the ears of business people in upstate New York, Chertoff said that a genuine commitment to devise a driver’s license identification would make a “persuasive case” for delaying requirements set for 2008 that would require a driver’s license with a photo along with a certified copy of a birth certificate to gain entrance to the country.
