New border-crossing rules that take effect in two weeks will mean longer lines and stiffer demands for ID, including for returning Americans, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.
A driver’s license won’t be good enough to get Americans past a checkpoint at the Canadian or Mexican border, Chertoff said.That will be a surprise to many people who routinely cross the border with Canada, but Chertoff bristled at criticism that such extra security would be inconvenient. More than 800,000 people enter the U.S. through land and sea ports each day. ‘
‘It’s time to grow up and recognize that if we’re serious about this threat, we’ve got to take reasonable, measured but nevertheless determined steps to getting better security,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.Thousands of people enter the U.S. through land crossings every day.
The biggest effect of the change will be at the Canadian border since it applies to both Canadians and Americans.
Non-Americans coming in through Mexico already need extra documentation.
So far, all the thousands of land crossers need to do, is elude the Border Patrol and walk across.
Congressional critics representing Northern border states were anything but impressed with Chertoff’s rhetoric.
His department has proved incapable of implementing a 2004 law on border security, and Chertoff ”frankly has as much credibility on telling people to ‘grow up’ as Geoffrey the Giraffe,” said Rep. Tom Reynolds, a Buffalo-area Republican.
Added Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican, ”Secretary Chertoff’s comments that those objecting to the plan need to ‘grow up’ indicates that the department still doesn’t understand the practical effects of DHS policies on the everyday lives of border community residents.”
……Under the new system, which takes effect Jan. 31, Americans and Canadians who are 19 or older will have to present proof of citizenship when they seek to enter the United States through a land or sea port of entry. A passport will be fine. Or a birth certificate coupled with some other ID such as a driver’s license.
Chertoff said he had been surprised to learn that simply stating ”I am an American” and showing an ID card has been sufficient to get back into the country. ”I don’t think in this day and age we can afford the honor system for entering the United States,” he said. ”Regrettably, we live in a world in which people lie sometimes about their identity.”
Regrettably, Chertoff’s border security is broke dick. Cracking down on people who obey the law isn’t going to fix the problem of the thousands who don’t.
For people other than Americans or Canadians, the rules at the northern border will be unchanged — passports and visas will still be required. The same goes for non-Americans at the Mexican border.
LINK: http://www.gopusa.com/news/2008/january/0118_id_rules1.shtml
Can Chertoff possibly be that stupid ?? Making American citizens show multiple forms of identification is going to stem the flood of ILLEGAL ALIENS who don’t bother coming across the legal way?
Good gawd. We need a Homeland Security chief with common sense and what we have instead, is a clown that makes an embarrassment out of himself and border security.
Just HI from another “out of place” (“socialist” Northeast Ohio) female Army vet from Norteast Ohio! You have the “e” address now. Be Well!
Chrys,
I see your’e from Canton. Football Hall of Fame town! Thanks for visiting, and please feel free to come back and comment.
SFC MAC
It is not about security. It is about controlling the American people and allowing big business to be conducted as usual. Slowly chipping away rights of no-longer free people while the masses sit in front of the TV and bask in the dribble fed to them seems to be a viable way of keeping an entire population in ignorance while the educational system rewards stupidity. Chertoff is not stupid. He is fulfilling his task of ignoring security for profit.
Jimmy,
The trouble with ‘business as usual’, is that it isn’t. I’m not sure how profit figures into a system that allows illegal aliens to suck off the teat of taxpaying citizens, welfare, and health care. If anything, it’s cost us billions. The employers who hire illegals are finally starting to feel the pinch. Make it cost them dearly when they don’t hire American citizens. Many corporations have outsourced thanks to the unions and non-negotiable wages. What do you expect them to do? In order to keep a business afloat you have to make a profit. If you don’t, you’ll fold and all your workers will be in the unemployment line. Tax incentives and paying people a salary commensurate with the skills, abilities, and demands of their respective jobs, is fair, but it’s not being done. I know someone who makes 30 bucks an hour driving a forklift at the Ford plant. I spent 32 years as a Soldier in the United States Army and never got paid for all the responsiblities, duties, and hazards I encountered. My combat “bonus” when I got deployed to Iraq, was 150 dollars a month above my pay. I made $47,000 a year before I retired. That put me at lower middle class. Aside from paying my own bills, I helped support my disabled mother and two of my siblings. I didn’t have much left over. I don’t blame the guy for the wage he makes; I blame the unions for forcing Ford to pay him an exhorbitant wage for doing work that really doesn’t require much effort or skill. There’s your ‘business as usual”. Having said that, maybe if/when the illegal immigration mess is resolved, more Americans can get back to work.
SFC MAC