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Sunday, May 31, 2009

No passport? Sorry, but you're not getting back in

By Matt Andazola
Journal Staff Writer
          You may think you have everything you need to return from Mexico, but you may be wrong.
        Beginning Monday, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative goes into full effect, so it will no longer be OK to have only your driver's license and birth certificate to re-enter the country from Mexico, Canada, Bermuda or the Caribbean.
        The most widely available acceptable documents will be U.S. passports or passport cards, according to the State Department.
        The cards — cheaper than passport books but not acceptable for air travel — are being used more frequently at the El Paso crossings, said Roger Maier, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
        "We're seeing them more and more frequently, even more than a month or two ago," he said.
        The State Department has issued more than 1 million of the cards, Florence Flupz, managing director for Passport Services, said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.
        The first phase of the initiative, which began in January 2007, saw stricter regulation on air travel and a flood of passport requests, infamously taking many months to complete.
        "We don't expect to see anything like that this time," Flupz said, adding that the department expects the average passport book or card process to take four weeks (or between two and three if a traveler opts for expedited service at a passport office).
        Maier said in El Paso, where about 90,000 northbound travelers are processed every day, the agency is prepared for a number of people who may be unaware of the new regulations despite heavy advertising along the border.
        "We're going to be practical and flexible to clear that person if they do not have the document," he said.
        According to the State Department, acceptable documents for U.S. citizens include: U.S. passports; U.S. passport cards; trusted traveler cards; state-issued enhanced driver's licenses (now available only in Washington state, New York, Michigan and Vermont); enhanced tribal driver's licenses; U.S. Military identification with travel orders; U.S. merchant marine documents; Native American tribal photo identification cards; and Form 1-872 American Indian cards.
       

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