Passport Requirement News

[dtengineering]

This applies specifically to Canadian teams that travel (or plan to travel in the future) to the USA and vice versa, and is quoted from the Vancouver Sun newspaper, page G6, Saturday Feb 24, 2007.

(For those of you who don't plan on doing any Canada/USA travelling, you should know that effective this year it became a REQUIREMENT for any person flying in to the USA -- including American citizens -- to have a passport. In the past if you flew from Canada you merely needed government issued photo ID, plus proof of citizenship (usually a birth certificate). The passport requirement for land crossings, originally scheduled to be implemented this year as well, has been delayed to 2009, I believe.)

I should also point out that I am aware that non-Canadians entering the USA face much stricter requirements, including fingerprinting.

This item, at least, is good news for teams competing in Canada and the USA.

"The US Department of Homeland Security is proposing to relax the passport requirements for travel between the US and Canada for children. This proposal, which will be subject to public comment, would allow US and Canadian citizens, ages 15 and younger with parental consent to cross the border at land and sea ports with a certified copy of their birth certificate as an alternative to a passport. US and Canadian citizen children, ages 16 through 18, travelling with public or private school groups, religious groups, social or cultural organizations or teams associated with youth athletics organizations would also be able to enter, under adult supervision, with a certified copy of their birth certificate. For more information visit http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm "

I think this makes a lot of sense, and I hope the "public comment" that DHS is seeking is positive. I know that if the passport requirements for land crossings had come into effect this year we probably would have done Waterloo and GTR rather than Portland and GTR. As much as we like going to Portland and working with our PNW neighbours, some things just aren't worth the hassle.

Jason