American border residents snapping up new US Passport Cards. Shorter lines expected benefit.

New regulations go into effect June 1, 2009.

Faster processing of Americans returning to the United States by land and sea from Canada will benefit everyone (hooray for shorter lineups!) now that new US-issued Passport Cards are accepted for entry into the United States. Passport Cards will also make crossings easy for Americans living in border communities because the cards read radio frequency identification (RFID) chips to access required personal information.

While the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) does not comment on border and passport issues, we encourage tourism operators to make American clients aware of the new Passport Cards.

With this RFID technology, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are able to see personal information stored in secure government databases before the traveller even reaches the inspection booth. Thirty-nine major ports of entry to the US will be equipped with the technology to read the Passport Cards.

These wallet-sized documents are good for land and sea travel between the US and Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda. It’s important to note that the US Passport Cards are not valid for international air travel.

More than 350,000 Americans have pre-ordered the Passport Cards since the US government began taking orders Feb. 1, 2008, according to the U.S. Department of State. About 7,600 cards have already been mailed to advance customers; all pre-orders are expected to be filled by Sept. 30, 2008. The U.S. Department of State estimates processing time for Passport Cards will take four weeks.

New regulations for land and sea entry into the US. will go into effect on June 1, 2009.

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