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NOGALES, Ariz. — A change is coming Jan. 1, and local mayors and the Border Trade Alliance fear border communities are not ready for it.
Under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative U.S. citizens, including residents in Southern Arizona, many of whom cross the border daily for personal or business purposes, will need a passport when they return from Mexico.
“This is life-changing for us,” Nogales, Ariz. Mayor Ignacio J. Barraza said in a recent interview.
The passport requirement is a component of the Patriot Act signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001 to combat terrorism just 45 days after the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
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Barraza said he appreciates the need for heightened security, but that border residents should be aware of what the WHTI means to them at a personal level, and how it will affect the economy.
As such, he is mobilizing area organizations and border-area governments to sponsor a regional conference in the fall on the WHTI.
Among those he has or will be turning to are the Greater Nogales Santa Cruz County Port Authority, Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, the cities of Douglas, Tucson, San Luis, Yuma and Sahuarita.
The WHTI “compels all citizens traveling abroad to have a passport or some, as yet to be disclosed, form of identification to get back into the United States,” Barraza said.
While the provision already applies at airports, “with land ports it is very different because border areas are contiguous to Mexico and Canada with people who cross back and forth daily.”
Barraza noted that, “There is little to no information being disseminated (by the federal government) as to what happens if someone loses the passport or this yet-to-be-defined alternate document,” he said.
“Reportedly there is a six- to eight-week processing time. Will these border residents who have to cross daily for personal or business purposes have to wait another six to eight weeks to obtain a passport to be able to cross?” Barraza asked rhetorically.
Last year, Congress approved an 18-month delay for the deadline for implementing WHTI as part of the Stevens-Leahy Amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, supported by the BTA.
However, despite the deadline delay, officials with the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department have publicly said their intention is to implement WHTI as early as January of 2008.
Passport delays
The program for air travel was implemented this year in January. It has resulted in a backlog of 500,000 passport applications.
Even with expedited processing for passports, for which there are additional fees, there is at least a two-month delay in these applications, BTA officials said.
“We expressed our concern to DHS and State from day one that we feared that this law would result in a deluge of applications and serious backlogs in the application process. Unfortunately, we have been proven right on this,” said Pete Sepulveda, chairman of the BTA.
Recently, DHS and DOS announced that travelers who had not yet received their passport due to the backlog could present a photo ID along with a receipt of their application. It is estimated that implementation of WHTI for land and seaports would increase passport applications by 8 million in the first year, a 16-fold increase over the current backlog.
The BTA is concerned that the announcement by DHS and DOS will only lead to more confusion among the traveling public and recommends they develop a more aggressive marketing strategy and present a more realistic timeframe for implementation, Sepulveda said.
“Allowing people to travel with proof that you have applied for your passport seems like a Band-Aid approach to a major policy and regulatory change in how we cross the border. These issues are too serious and impact a vast number of business people and tourists. We should not move to implement these or any policies until we are certain that we are prepared to handle them properly,” Sepulveda said.
While the BTA supports the efforts of DHS and DOS to increase national security, the BTA continues to advocate for a proper implementation of WHTI that will ensure: an accommodation for casual travelers; adequate staffing and training for those enforcing the provisions of WHTI; economic studies to understand the economic impacts upon border communities; and technology for the passport alternatives that proves effective and is seamlessly integrated.
The BTA continues to call on both agencies to proceed with implementation after fully developing the lower cost PASS Card, as well as performing additional outreach to the public on new security requirements and preventing additional delays in issuing passports to U.S. citizens.
Editor Manuel C. Coppola writes for the Nogales International, a Wick Communications Co. newspaper. Contact him at, (520) 375-5766 or by e-mail, manuel.coppola@nogalesinternational.com.
SV Resident wrote on Jul 9, 2007 3:15 PM: