One common passport question that often arises for people considering international travel is the question of whether or not a passport is required for border nations. In America, this question applies to Mexico and Canada. Currently, the answer is yes, a passport to Canada or Mexico is needed when traveling. Anyone thinking of traveling outside the US borders will need a valid pass port card.
Prior to June 1, 2009, passports were not required for land travel to U.S. border countries. Passports were often times not required for air travel, provided that the border country was the only destination. Before June of 2009, state issued documents such as drivers licenses or government identification cards were sufficient to re-enter the United States.
The new 2009 law requires USA passport card for any travel outside of the U.S. This law applies to land, sea, and air travel. Although this law was implemented nearly 8 years after the September 11th attacks of 2001, many people point to 9/11 as the motivation behind the law.
According to Homeland Security, this is all an attempt at shoring up our borders and making our country a more secure place to live. Many times, illegal immigrants and possible terrorists took advantage of these lax regulations and passed into our borders with barely an eyebrow being raised. Old documentation was not exactly difficult to forge and entry was quite easy for just about anyone.
Although the law would seem to make perfect sense, many of the citizens on the bordering states are up in arms about the inconvenience that has been posed to them. There are outcries that it is ridiculous to have to carry a passport to Canada when we have traveled so freely in the past. These same people are not taking the time to consider that these border countries are the very means by which terrorists have previously entered our country.
The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security maintain that these new regulations are the best way to curb the flow of dangerous illegal immigrants. Although the new law is certainly inconvenient to some, the benefits of the added security outweigh any personal inconvenience. Still, the Department of State is offering some new innovations to make the transition a bit smoother.
One of the new forms of identification that can be used in place of a regular passport is a passport card. They are much less expensive to obtain than a standard passport and they are also a lot easier to carry. Instead of carrying a big, bulky passport folder, they can have documentation that will fit into the same space that a drivers license would normally occupy.
It should be apparent to everyone that these measures are in place for our safety. We may not like having to carry a USA passport card to Canada, but it beats the alternative of having our borders being completely open. Instead, a small inconvenience adds a heightened level of security and a little piece of mind to everyone that lives in the United States. Research passports today!