New U.S. Border Entry Rules Take Effect Today*
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 01.31.08 | 9:18 AM ET
If you’re a Canadian or U.S. citizen crossing into the U.S., you’ll now need to show a government-issued photo ID—a driver’s license will do—and proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. Those under 18 need only a birth certificate. Of course, a passport is all you really need, but the new rules are a precursor to a mandatory passport rule, which has been postponed until at least 2009. Cross-border commuters fear long waits and headaches as the new rules take effect today. Hopefully the scene at checkpoints won’t look anything like this. The U.S. State Department has the official word on requirements.
Update, 11:40 a.m. PT: Word from the Tijuana-San Ysidro border crossing this morning is that the wait is perhaps slightly longer than usual.
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Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
John M. Edwards 01.31.08 | 12:29 PM ET
Hi Jim:
That sounds very unreasonable, having to bring your birth certificate with you on a trip (mine is carefully hidden somewhere in a kitchen drawer or something). I’ll stick to my passport.
But it could be worse. I remember the long lines at Checkpoint Charlie, when I paid a visit to East Berlin during the Cold War. It was quite strange. In a dreary shopping mall I ordered “chicken soup,” and got a huge bowl of broth with an entire chicken in it, including the head! Hooking up with some Dutch guys we went to a bierstube, and the waiter, thinking we were all Nederlandish, completely trashed the US, saying that basically Americans were the enemy. I smiled and shuddered, and beat a hasty retreat.
The thing is: I don’t remember going back through Checkpoint Charlie on the way out. I just remember being in East Berlin’s subway system, marveling over the Socialist Realism “art,” which included a poster of the “Ubermensch” (Superman) with a $ sign for the S and a missile for a head. (Not bad for political propaganda.) Anyway, in my drunken state, I somehow made it back to West Berlin and my hotel without (and this is crucial) going back through the checkpoint. So maybe East and West were linked all along, and I rode a secret underground passage. Pretty cool, huh!
Anyway, it’s fun crossing borders in general. The only thing is I suddenly, apropos of nothing, feel guilty whenever I broach a frontier. Sadly, even crossing into Canada with my Yanqui passport, I’m usually stripsearched.
Yiupi 07.19.08 | 12:04 PM ET
At checkpoint Charly there was no problem to went into the eastern sector, but if you wanted to go into the western sector you have to had some proof of citizenship…
alex 07.20.08 | 8:52 AM ET
Yes absurdly, that sounds very unreasonable, having to bring your birth certificate with you on a trip. Probably on that is to say their own reasons. Though not quite understandable why this it is necessary. Apropos in Mexico too it is necessary to take or passport or birth certificate. If individual members of the group do not have appropriate documentation, they will be unable to accompany the group during that part of the trip.