Passports

Wisebread reminds us of the upcoming tightening of border controls, as well as the introduction of a new “Passport Card” to speed land crossings along:

Last year’s plan making a passport required for all international travel created a frenzy of applications for the document and sent the issuing system into gridlock. The result was a delay of the plan but it is still set to take effect by June, 2009.

This means that you will be required to present a passport, which now costs $97 for an adult and $82 for a child, in order to re-enter the United States. If you are planning a family vacation abroad this could mean a substantial additional cost.

However, if your travel plans involve a border crossing via land (to Canada or Mexico, for example) or sea (like a cruise to the Caribbean), then you may be able to take advantage of a new option, almost 50% cheaper. The new passport card is a wallet sized ID imprinted with a RFID chip. If all goes to plan, the cards will be available in February at the price of $45 for adults and $35 for children. If you are an adult in need of a passport renewal, the card will cost only $20.

Now, when looking at the State Departments’ propaganda on the passport card, and with the awareness that I’m going to need to renew my passport next year, I have a few thoughts:

• The card is pretty, in a federally bureaucratic kind of way.
   
• I originally got my passport back in the days where it was possible to get some superb “internet deals” on international travel.  My initial application for a passport was so that I could take such a trip “just in case”.  (Indeed, my wife’s and my trip to Paris 9 years ago was on an “internet special” ticket.)   However, other than that adventure, my limited use of my passport has been for the occasional run to Canada, for our cruise last summer, and when I’ve changed jobs and didn’t want to dig up other documentation for the first-day formalities.
   
• Therefore, when it comes time to renew, maybe I ought to consider getting the passport card rather than a full-fledged passport.
   
• Ah, but the State Department specifies that the passport card is to be used only for land border crossings.  For entering the country by air, you still need the full-fledged passport.
   
• So…why the distinction?   I realize that other international conventions may govern the nature of passports, but fundamentally if a new fancy card is deemed sufficient to “guarantee” security is satisfied for land crossings, then shouldn’t it be adequate for air transit as well?
   
• At the very least, for those of us who will be getting full-blown passports, perhaps the State Department could throw in a passport card in addition to the full passport, so we can have the added convenience for a quick run for the border. 
   
• And, if the State Department is putting together the means to start issuing these new fancy cards…heck, you almost wonder if one possible answer to the Real ID mess is to allow DMV’s in the states which don’t want to shell out the money to comply with Real ID to accept and pass along Passport Card applications to help folks get a mandatory-in-all-but-name identity card satisfying the tougher federal specs.

Seen in the New York Times:

Passports will not be necessary for Americans entering the United States by land until mid-2009, a year later than planned, if a budget bill passed by Congress is approved by President Bush. A provision of a budget bill pushes back the plan by the Department of Homeland Security to require passports from border crossers from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean as a way of strengthening national security.

I think just this once I’ll waive my dislike of “hiding” tangentially-related or unrelated items in large pieces of legislation.

Seen at KGO-TV:

Starting Monday, you need a passport to get to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean by air. Birth certificates or driver’s license no longer will do, and authorities say today went without any major problems.[...]

[Before the new rule was suspended this summer the] wait time for a passport was four to six weeks longer than normal. People who couldn’t get passports on time had to cancel travel plans and on Monday, there was no line.

“We’re so happy to say that the wait time is back to our regular processing time which is 6-8 weeks,” said Tracy Graff from the San Francisco Passport Agency.

Now is a good time to get a passport if you don’t have one already. The rules change again on January 31 when you’ll need a passport to travel to any international destination whether you’re going by land, sea or air.

There’s been no word yet on when the Geheimstaatspolizei will implement internal passport controls.