Upcoming Visa and Passport changes for US entry
 

From http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...UGS8DI7PL1.DTL


Upcoming passport and visa changes
Oct. 25: Travelers from 27 mostly European nations that do not need visas to enter the United States will be required to carry passports with tamper- proof digital photographs of themselves.

Jan. 1: American citizens re-entering this country after visits to Caribbean nations will be required to carry U.S. passports to get back in. Currently, a driver's license or birth certificate will do.

Oct. 26, 2006: Citizens of 27 nations who do not need visas to enter the United States will be required to carry machine-readable passports from their home countries, embedded with biometric data such as their digital fingerprints and iris scans. (This requirement has been postponed twice, most recently last week.)

Jan. 1, 2008: American citizens re-entering this country from Canada and Mexico will be required to carry U.S. passports.

Sources: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of State

I think I just replied to a similar post. From what I remember, from Oct 2006 I thought it would only be necessary for countries to start issuing biometric passports as opposed to passengers actually carrying them.
As I've said, this week's UK papers have been full of this. Apparently the cost of these passports could be up to £360. However, the cost willbe subsidised to £90 when the pasports are compulsory.
Personally there is no way I'm going to pay £360 (about $600) for the privilege of travelling to America.

You passed the common sense test. CONGRATS!

Those of us in the EU it seems our red maschine readable ones are still going to be accepted with the waiver prog. I guess the money to read those hughly expensive & not much saver bio metric ones just hasn`t grown on trees in the US either yet.....

I read in the press last week that visitors to the US will be photograped and fingerprinted when leaving the Country as well as entering sometime next year.

I think I read in the United forum that this is already happening at Seattle.

Does this mean that the US will have exit controls on all the border points?

I often wondered why the US, Canada and the UK do not check your passports before you leave. I wondered what was the point of having entry controls if the countries had no idea who departed within their alloted visa time limit. It seems like an illegal immigrants dream to me.

It happened to me at SFO in Feb, you use one of the many machines dotted around airside and collect a receipt (which nobody knows what to do with) when you are done

They have them at DTW too. No one actually told me that they are something I am supposed to go and play with, and I wonder just how many passengers just walk past them.

They are good, in a way - if your green visa waiver card somehow gets lots on its way from the airline to US Immigration you still have some proof. On the other hand, what's to stop people from punching in their details whilst waiting to board an internal flight, and pretending they have left?

I have that receipt, too. do i keep it for next US entry????

I am afraid this characterises so much of the procedures which put off both business and tourist visitors to the US. The expensive machines have been sold to the US Government in bulk by their manufacturers, they having convinced the government of the need for them in the all-conquering name of security, of course. The fact that the consequent procedures could be avoided by anyone wishing to is completely irrelevant.

This is already the case at some airports. Not yet at LAX.

Only if they failed to collect the stub of green visa waiver form. Of course you have no idea whether it made it to the "authorities" after being ripped out at checkin (or lounge or gate as applicable), so yes I'd keep it until next entry to US and then bin it.

As alluded to above, it can also be a tourist's nightmare, particularly when the airline employees forget or are too lazy to turn in the departure cards, or simply lose them.

On a return visit, the visitors are erroneously dubbed "former overstayers," and sometimes detained. :eek:

Once the US-VISIT system is fully operational, these will reconcile information against the APIS manifests submitted by the airline and check for anomalies.


It is the responsibility of the passenger to familiarize themselves with the local immigration regulations.

... and as a result of future developments indicated in the former paragraph, I hope we don't have an increase in the number of diversions and delays.

... and as a result of the obligations mentioned in the latter paragraph -- which implicitly notes that "ignorance of the law is not an excuse for non-compliance with (read as 'violation of') the law" -- there will be alot of persons who could say: "I visited the US once, well sort of twice". :D Unfortunately, many such persons will not return and will, in turn, turn others off from visiting the US. :(

on behalf of the good, decent citizens of the US, I apologize for my government's inhumane and completely insane treatment of our friends in other countries who wish to conduct business or simply visit us. I have travelled to over 64 countries in my short life and have only seen similar tactics used in ultra-repressive countries entering/exiting the country seemed like I was criminal for being a caucasian US citizen. Maybe when hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are unable to enter into the US for that trip to Disney World or to visit a potential business partner or vendor and in turn, and millions or probably billions of dollars are lost, then the government will see how detrimental it's attitudes about passports/visas/non-US nationals truly are.

>I often wondered why the US, Canada and the UK do not check your passports before you leave.

Well, speaking as a citizen of Canada it's none of my government's business as to when and how I choose to leave the country. They can track me returning (because they have to) but my own movements are my own business.

Furthermore, how would you track me when leaving anyway? If I depart from a marina on a sailboat for the USA there's really no way to track me departing. Ditto with a little private plane. I have to legally *enter* the USA, but there's no way to monitor my departure.

Cheers,
Geoff Glave
Vancouver, Canada

Canada maintains a database of positive APIS matches for outbound passengers, so they are already well aware of when you leave the country by air and where you are headed to.

I wonder about that too. No immigration counters at the departure levels of U.S. airports, thus no need to undergo such procedures. The only immigration counters at Canadian Airport Departure levels are those U.S. Pre-clearence.

Yes, some of my friends have lived in Canada for many years but do not have permanent residence. They say you do not need as no one checks when you leave. When they go home to Hong Kong to visit family, they just buy another return ticket to Toronto and ditch the return portion. They say it is cheaper to buy a return anyway. As far as work goes, they are self employed and could not care less and certainly are not interested in paying taxes.

Do they tell a white lie at customs - yes, do they care - nope! It is all a game.


Like I said before - Canada certainly has no idea who overstays and who does not. This is certainly true if you have a passport that does not require a Visa to enter Canada.

The throw-away ticketing friends would be better off -- financially speaking -- using two one-way mileage awards, one (or both) of which could be cancelled. :D

I don't think anyone here has mentioned the absolutely horrible passport requirements now required for foreign journalists coming to the U.S. I'm an American now living in the UK and my partner is a British journalist who must now pay some ridiculous amount just to accompany me back to the States.. let alone do work there. The rigamarole here at the Embassy to do all this is truly mindboggling and degrading.. but necessary.

We are becoming a Big Brother state... very sad to see what has happened since 9/11.