U.S. government may suspend new border rules to ease passport crunch

For the Cruisers.....
"...Caribbean destinations are not included in the proposed suspension, the officials said. ..."


[link to canadaeast.com]

U.S. government may suspend new border rules to ease passport crunch

Published Thursday June 7th, 2007
The United States may suspend a major post-Sept. 11 security initiative to cope with increasingly angry complaints from Americans whose summer vacations are threatened by new passport rules.

A proposal under consideration would temporarily waive a requirement that U.S. passports be used for air travel to and from Canada and Mexico, provided the traveller can prove he or she has applied for a passport, officials said Thursday.

The proposed six-month suspension in the rules is aimed at clearing a massive backlog of passport applications at the State Department that has slowed processing to a crawl, they said.

The proposal applies only to Americans, a U.S. official said. Canadian air travellers entering the United States will still need passports.

But it would be a balm to the Canadian tourism industry and others who rely on a steady stream of American visitors and are already losing money due to confusion about the new security rules.

The plan has run into opposition from the Homeland Security Department, which controls U.S. border points and fears the move could make it easier for terrorists or other undesirables to enter the country, the officials said.

Instead of a passport, travellers could present a State Department receipt showing their passport application was being processed.

It is being reviewed by Homeland Security, the White House and members of Congress, who have been deluged with complaints from furious constituents, according to four officials at the agencies involved.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is still the subject of internal debate and details are not finalized. But three of the officials said an announcement of the move could come as early as Friday.

"This is pre-decisional, and I have no comment," Homeland spokesman Russ Knocke said.

One official familiar with the discussions said if the plan goes ahead, those without passports would receive additional security scrutiny when they travel, which could include extra questioning or bag checks.

The suspension would give the State Department time to deal with a surge in applications that have overwhelmed its processing centres since the new rules took effect earlier this year.

The backlog has caused up to three month delays in issuing passports and ruined or delayed the travel plans of untold thousands of Americans.

Wait times for Canadian passports are nearly as long as those in the United States.

Frustrated U.S. legislators, besieged with constituent complaints, have demanded relief.

Representative Thomas Reynolds (R-N.Y.) whose district lies near the Canadian border, said White House officials have been on Capitol Hill trying to work out a compromise amid what he called a "turf war" between State and Homeland Security.

The State Department has hired hundreds of new passport adjudicators, put employees to work around-the-clock and opened a new processing facility in Arkansas but has still been unable to meet the demand.

Initial hopes that the delays could be overcome were dashed earlier this month when more than a million requests for new passports were dumped at once on the facilities by banks contracted to clear application fee checks, a senior State Department official said.

The passport application surge is the result of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative that since January has required U.S. citizens to use passports when entering the United States from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean by air.

Caribbean destinations are not included in the proposed suspension, the officials said.

The travel initiative, which next year will require either passports or yet-to-be developed wallet-sized passcards to be presented at land border crossings, is part of a broader package of immigration rules enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

However, it has caused deep annoyance, particularly from those who live in border states and make routine, legal crossings into Canada and Mexico for business and pleasure.

Between March and May of this year, the department issued more than 4.5 million passports, a 60 per cent increase over the same period in 2006, but millions more applications are waiting to be processed, according to consular affairs officials.

The demand is such that the State Department has warned applicants to allow as long as 12 weeks for their passports to be issued and up to three weeks for expedited processing at an extra fee. Previously, the maximum wait was six weeks and two weeks, respectively.