Passports to Mexico and Canada

[ScreamingEagle]

Looks like the simple days of just a driver's license is over. Now you will need a passport to get back into the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Carribean, and all other points south.

This is because, as Condoleeza Rice says, there are "people who want to come in to hurt us''. :blah2:

Yeah, OK, so what about the millions of illegals entering everyday without even a simple drivers license? And I gotta get a passport now? (actually I already got one but it's the principle of the thing)

"There's a very strong awareness that these are tremendous commercial borders and that you don't want to hinder the commercial activity," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press. "But at the same time, you've got to have some controls that help you prevent people who are trying to come in and hurt us."

She added: "It's part of the recognition that in 2001, when Sept. 11 happened and frankly before that, when you think about the millennium plot in 1999 these were borders that I think no one could call secure."

http://www.dailybulletin.com/Stories/0,1413,203~21481~2800475,00.html
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/04/05/passports050405.html
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/11320401.htm

 

[Said1]

Looks like the simple days of just a driver's license is over. Now you will need a passport to get back into the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Carribean, and all other points south.

I was allowed entry with a buspass many years ago (although grudgingly). Had I been refused, we would have called the person we were going to visit, and he would have picked me up in Brockville with his boat.

 

[Yurt]

Having lived in the NW for the past 9 years, I can appreciate this article. When I first arrived there all I had to do to get into to Canada was show a driver's license. I wasn't that amazed as I grew up in S.Cal and went to tij(wannanevergothereagain) a few times as a kid and all you needed was your license (must admit, being white helped, my fam/friends were literally ushered through the line and hah, never caught my illegal butterfly-knife, man, was I the coolest 8th grader ever....).

However, after 9/11 and the millenium threat in Seattle (ME guy caught with lots of explosives/plans in his car to blow up the space needle) I began to rethink the laid back approach to entering this country with only a license. You see, I still wish it only required a license, however, Canada and Mexico have less stringent means for allowing foreigners in their country. Mexico being the biggest transgressor of the two. Thus, all someone needs to do is fake a driver's license and they get into the country. I know, they say passports can be faked as well, however, I don't think they are as easy to fake, and according to recent news, they will in fact be harder to fake.

So for me, even though I now live on the central coast of CA, so will not have time to drive through to Canada, thus requiring a passport as I will have to fly, if I lived in the NW (hopefully again soon) then the cost of the passport which lasts 10 years is outweighed by the dangers associated with not having one. I belive they just raised to the cost to around $95, this is less than $10 a year. I know, not present value of money, especially since you have to fork it over now, but even consider future value the cost can really only come to around $15 a year.

Passports are needed, so long as they are more reliable than licenses.

As to the illegals, ok, this won't stop that. However, that guy with the bombs at port angeles, wa, would have had to sneak his car across the border with no passport. It just makes it harder. Not foolproof, just more difficult, which is the least we can do, especially since Bush appears to be siding with Vincente on this.