U.S. delays e-passport requirement to mid-2009

The travel and hospitality industries catch a second break in as many weeks, as a U.S. Senate committee yesterday voted to put off until mid-2009 passport requirements for U.S. travelers entering the United States by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the delay to 1 June 2009 because of a huge backlog in issuing new U.S. passports. This backlog is the result of a DHS rule change earlier this year which tightened requirements for some air travel by U.S. citizens. The new passport requirement for land and sea travel meant that as of 1 January 2008, travelers entering the United States would have had to show passports or other travel documents equipped with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) bar which contained biometric information. These passports would then be read by an RFID reader at the port of entry and the information compared to that contained in a centralized biometric database.

These new twin requirements — for travelers to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean to show passports at the border, and, more genrally, for new passports applicants to provide biometric information — created a mammoth backlog of application at the State Department, and caused the waiting period for a new passprot to go fromm several weeks to several months.

Last week the administration announced it was relaxing the first of these two new rules — the one requiring air and sea travelers entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean to show passports before being allowed into the United States — just as the summer travel season was beginning. The 23 January 2007 start of the passport requirement for air travelers was put off until October, and travelers can now go through if they show a copy of the application and a receipt for the application fee.