Bush Administration Lifts Many Passport Restrictions Until September

The Associated Press is reporting that an announcement today by the Bush Administration will alleviate one of the travel worries for thousands of Americans this summer. According to the announcement, some of the requirements for passports will be lifted this summer.

The Bush Administration has announced that anyone flying to or from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda this summer will not need a passport. This will take away one of the stresses that travelers are facing from the Post-9/11 travel changes.

This will also allow the governmental offices time to catch up on the excessive amounts of applications that have come in for passports this year. Many of the processing locations have become overwhelmed and have gotten backlogged causing some people to have to cancel or postpone vacation plans.

This lift will be in effect until the end of September. At that time, all of the restrictions that have been in place up to this point will go back into effect. Anyone traveling after that date is encouraged to send their passport requests in now so that it will be guaranteed to be processed in a timely manner.

This points out that the Border Patrol, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security were not ready for the influx of changes and passport requests. There are many people in Congress that were opposed to these rulings that are going to use this occurrence of a lift as evidence against the policies.

Next year, the policy will go into effect that a person traveling to or from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, or Bermuda by land or sea will need a passport. There is still a lot of opposition over this from the States that border Canada or Mexico.

In Michigan, there are multiple ways to make it to Canada without a passport. The cities on the other side of the border such as Windsor and Sarnia are worried that the new restrictions on travel from and to the United States will severely affect their local economies.

Many of the border cities in Canada make most of their tax dollars from sales of goods and services to visitors from the United States. There have already been major changes in these cities to attempt to battle this loss of revenue.

There is a chance that this current lift on the passport requirements could result in the forced modification of some of the requirements that are supposed to take place in the future. Only time will tell if the opposition will win or if the current Administration will stand by past decisions.

Source:

Associated Press: Travel Restrictions Lifted
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070608/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_passports;_ylt=AsekWEeShHmbwviLUoaJQE_MWM0F