Beginning on January 23, 2007, nearly everybody traveling to the United States by airplane will be required to have a valid passport, including American citiziens returning home.
The new passport rules apply to travel from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean. It means just about everybody in the Western Hemisphere will need a valid passport to travel to or from the United States.
It also means that countries we used to be able to visit with nothing more than the driver’s license in our wallets or a certified birth certificate will now require a valid passport or an Air NEXUS card.
The new passport regulations are because of terrorism. Simply, passports are more difficult to forge than a driver's license or birth certificate.
"Right now, there are 8,000 different state and local entities in the U.S. issuing birth certificates and driver's licenses," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Associated Press on Nov. 21. Having to distinguish phony from real in so many different documents "puts an enormous burden on our Customs and Border inspectors," he said.
The passport requirement will be extended at the end of 2007 or early in 2008 to include anybody traveling by land or sea – that means cars, tour buses, cruise ships, even ferries – will need a passport to enter the United States.
For people who commute regularly between, say, the US and Canada for work, a special limited-use passport is being developed. It will be similar to a credit card. But the rest of us will need a passport.
It’s all part of the Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 passed by the U.S. Congress.
Right now 70 million US citizens hold valid passports. That’s only about one-quarter of the eligible population.
If you have a passport, be sure it does not expire soon after your next planned adventure travel. Some countries will not let you enter if your passport expires within 3-6 weeks of your trip, in case something delays your return home.
What happens if you travel after Jan. 23, 2007 and do not have a valid passport? You will be punished. You will be sent to the prison of “secondary screening”. That could mean enough additional time on line and the searching of your body and your luggage that you miss your connecting flight. At the very least, it will be just one more thing to stress the travel experience.
U.S. citizens can visit the State Department’s web site http://travel.state.gov or call the National Passport Information Center at (877) 4USA-PPT, including for information about U.S. Post Office locations where you can start the process.
This is important -- It takes around 6 weeks to process a passport application, and the busiest time for passport processing is between January and July. If you need a passport sooner, expedited processing is available. As always, faster service costs more.
Every U.S. citizen traveling out-of-country will need a passport under the new regs, even children. For those 16 or older, a new passport costs $97, plus whatever it costs to get passport photos taken. For children under 16, the fees total $82. Passport renewals are $67.
So, if you don't have a passport and want to travel after January, 2007, apply now.
