At Canadian border, does tight make right?

INTERNATIONAL FALLS, MINN. - Robert Dault lives just a few miles from work, a distance he says he theoretically could drive in 15 minutes without breaking any laws.

But on summer weekends his commute can take more than two hours, his car barely inching through the line to cross the international border between his home in Fort Frances, Ont., and the Minnesota lodge where he works as a cook. Since 9/11, Dault, an American married to a Canadian, has felt U.S. border security grow steadily tighter.

He's among thousands of border residents from Maine to Washington who are concerned that another new restriction scheduled to take effect by mid-2009 -- that no one can enter the United States, even by land, without a passport or other "secure document" -- will further complicate their lives.

Beyond the personal inconvenience, they fear the plan will hurt their local economies and make their traditionally friendly border a little less so.

"The lines can already be awful, and I'm thinking they're going to get worse," said Dault, who cooks at Thunderbird Lodge on Rainy Lake, where he says up to half the restaurant customers on weekends are Canadian. "They're going to be checking the identification of every person in every car."

Those concerned about the plans may have gotten some breathing room Thursday when Congress extended the start date for the passport requirement from the middle of 2008 to the middle of 2009. Sponsors of the delay, part of a budget bill that still must be approved by President Bush, hope it will give them a chance to substitute a more convenient requirement, such as a technologically enhanced driver's license, and beef up border computer infrastructure to make the system more efficient.

"The quality of life of many of our communities is tied to an open passage to and from Canada," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., one of the lawmakers who pushed for the delay. Coleman said he and other members of Congress from border states want to avoid the passport-application backlogs and other headaches that occurred when a similar restriction went into effect earlier this year for air travel within the Western Hemisphere.

Some leeway for children

All the changes are part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative [WHTI], a joint plan of the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, applying to all border-crossers from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Central and South America.

The initiative was announced in 2005 and was expected to be phased-in completely by January 2008, with the new U.S.-Canada land border rules taking effect last. A new rule still scheduled to take effect at the end of January will require everyone entering from Canada to have at least some official identification, such as a birth certificate or driver's license.

In response to complaints, the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year exempted from its plans children up to age 18 from showing passports if they are traveling with school, church or athletic groups. Coleman said that under the current plan they'll still be required to show a birth certificate, however.

As a result of WHTI, the State Department issued a record 18.4 million passports in fiscal year 2007, compared to 12.1 million in 2006. The trend is expected to continue.

Make it wallet-sized

Pete Schultz, executive director of the International Falls Convention and Visitor's Bureau, said many borderland residents have recently applied for passports "at $90 or more a throw" for themselves and their children. Despite news reports that the requirement may be delayed or scrapped, many residents need to visit Canada often and don't want to take the chance that they'll suddenly be cut off from returning, he said.

Dault said that he recently spent $127 for a passport with an "expedited" processing period because he couldn't risk being prevented from getting to work.

Sandie Fish of Roosevelt, Minn., said she too got one recently, in case she'll need it to return home after visiting her daughter and grandchildren in Atikokan, Ont., about 90 miles from International Falls.

Her husband Butch, who has yet to apply for his, said, "I think they should do something special for the locals -- a special driver's license, identification card, or something that is less expensive."

Dault agreed: "A driver's license fits in your wallet. A passport doesn't and would be much easier to lose. I don't want to have to carry one of those all the time."

Larry Oakes • 1-218-727-7344