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New Passports Requirements For Mexico Travel
Americans flying to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean made sure to bring their passports Monday because of a new rule going into effect Tuesday that requires them to show one to get back into the country.
Only about a 1/4 of U.S. citizens hold valid passports, and most Americans are accustomed to traveling to neighboring countries with just a driver's license or birth certificate, which have long been sufficient to get through airport customs on the trip home. The new regulations requiring passports were adopted by Congress in 2004 to secure the borders against terrorists.
Starting Tuesday, Canadian, Mexican and Bermudan air travelers, as well as U.S. citizens flying home from those countries or the Caribbean, must display their passports to enter the United States.
The only valid substitutes for a passport will be a NEXUS Air card, used by some American and Canadian frequent fliers; identification as a U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner; and the green card carried by legal permanent residents. Active members of the U.S. military are exempt.
For now, the rules affect only air travelers. Land and sea travelers will not have to show passports until at least January 2008. Air travelers who cannot produce a passport will be interviewed by customs agents, who will decide whether to let them into the country.
Canadian consulate officials in the U.S. reported fielding hundreds of calls a day, most from the approximately 100,000 Canadian "snowbirds" who spend the winter in Florida or Arizona and feared they might not be able to fly back without passports. The State Department issued a record 12.1 million passports in 2006 and expects to issue 16 million more this year to meet the increased demand.
Mexican consulates are seeing a demand for passports three times higher than usual in some offices. In San Francisco on Monday, the line of people applying for passports at the Mexican consulate stretched around the block.
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