DOS & DHS Announce Plans to Require Passports for Western Hemisphere Travel

On April 5, 2005, the Department of State (DOS) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require all U.S. citizens, Canadian citizens, citizens of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, and citizens of Mexico to have a passport or other accepted secure document to enter or re-enter the United States. This new travel requirement is expected to have adverse implications for industry, business, and tourism.

NOTE: on April 14, 2005, President Bush issued a statement that he does not support these changes. Therefore, it is quite possible that these proposed changes will not take effect or will be very different from what is proposed. However, since this is a sea change in passport requirements, we feel it is important to outline this situation.

DOS and DHS are issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) on the initiative to request input and comments on the suggested documents and possible alternative documents that may be acceptable for travel. A more formal rulemaking will be issued later in 2005, after review of initial comments, to implement the first phase of the initiative. The rulemaking will take into account comments received in response to the ANPRM as well as solicit further comments on the published rule itself.

In order to provide sufficient "advance notice" of the change to the affected travelers and to mitigate the adverse implications, the U.S. government proposes to implement the change in travel documents in three phases as follows:

Phase	Starting Date	Ports of Entry	Originating Travel Country
I.	12/31/2005	air or sea	Caribbean, Central and South America
II.	12/31/2006	air or sea	All Western Hemisphere countries, including Canada & Mexico
III.	Before 01/01/2008	land	All Western Hemisphere countries, including Canada & Mexico

According to the press release, DHS and DOS expect that acceptable documents would establish the citizenship and identity of the bearer, enable electronic data verification and checking, and include significant security features. Ultimately, all documents used for travel to the U.S. are expected to include biometrics that can be used to authenticate the document and verify identity.

The announcement suggests that certain secure transit cards, such as the Border Crossing Card “BCC” laser visa and other DHS-issued cards authorizing cross-border travel will be acceptable. However, the permanent resident card (“green card”) is not included on the list of secure documents that will be accepted for international travel without a passport. DHS announced that an advance notice of proposed rulemaking will be published in the Federal Register soon. After the notice is published, interested parties may submit comments to the rule as directed in the published announcement.

Please note that these proposed changes will cause travel for citizens of the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, to become subject to similar requirements as those for other individuals who travel outside the Western Hemisphere. In short, most individuals who travel to the U.S. are required to present a passport along with appropriate travel documents (e.g., H-1B visa petition and visa, advance parole, green card).