It's called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and if you're a U.S. citizen traveling to or returning from another country in the Western Hemisphere, you must present a p***port before leaving or entering this country.Areas that fall under the purview of this initiative are Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean region, which includes 17 areas.
According to a State Department Web page, they are:
Anguilla; Antigua and Barbuda; Aruba; Bahamas; Bermuda; British Virgin Islands; Cayman Islands; Dominica; Dominican Republic; Grenada; Jamaica (except for business travel); Montserrat; Netherlands Antilles; St. Kitts and Nevis;St. Lucia; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Turks and Caicos.
At this point, the p***port rule applies only to air travel. But as plans now stand, the government intends to implement the p***port rule for land and sea travel as well during the summer of 2008.
Most U.S. citizens entering the country at a sea or land port will need to have a p***port or something called a p***port card, which is currently under development and is not yet available. There will be other acceptable documents as well. For more details, check out
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
State Department officials say that the huge backlog of p***port applications that caused so much inconvenience earlier this year has eased, and that processing times have returned to six to eight weeks, the "normal" wait for a p***port.
intend to travel, now would be a good time to begin the process, before more deadlines loom and more delays occur.
10-02-2007, 09:32 AM
Linear Mode
