Posted on 05/03/2007 3:54:33 AM PDT by Clive
WASHINGTON (CP) - New York Senator Charles Schumer blasted U.S. officials Wednesday for trying to "shove this round peg through a square hole" by requiring passports at the Canada-U.S. border.
And the alternative high-technology card that Americans will be offered won't be any more convenient, said Schumer, a Democrat, as he urged officials to consider enhanced driver's licences instead.
"It's bureaucracy at its worst, taking an overall solution that has worked in other places and not (examining) how it looks when you go across the border," he told a Senate subcommittee on terrorism.
"I am really troubled by everything about it," Schumer said, noting that Americans are waiting up to 10 weeks to get a passport these days.
"One would hope that we'd have an executive branch that would deal with the unique problems (in border states) instead of just saying: 'We're going to try to shove this round peg through a square hole.' "
"People travel from Fort Erie to Buffalo daily, every day, back and forth, and they don't get passports, they don't apply in advance to travel. It's expensive and will really hurt commerce."
If people don't adjust, said Schumer, trade across the Niagara River could slow down dramatically and put a major dent in the economy of western New York state, not to mention other border states.
Meantime, he said he can't imagine how a alternative, cheaper passcard is going to be ready by the Jan. 1, 2008, deadline that Homeland Security insists it will meet.
"We don't have a set date," agreed Andrew Simkin, the State Department's director of fraud prevention programs.
The final technology for the cards hasn't been selected and there's been no field testing, something officials acknowledged after blistering questions from Schumer.
Congress has given the administration until June 2009 to implement the program, an extension that Homeland insists isn't required.
But Simkin agreed the longer timeline is an option.
Officials have already acknowledged, for instance, that they won't have the readers in place by January to verify passcards of Americans returning from Canada.
And Schumer, like others, is concerned the database storing information on card-holders could be a gold mine for hackers.
Asked if there are plans to expedite documents for people who need to cross the border quickly for funerals, hockey games or any other number of unplanned events, Simkin said they could be directed to walk-in counters.
But he said there were no plans to open more of those services in border states by January 2008.
"It's obvious that there is an inconvenience factor," said Simkin.
"That belittles it," replied Schumer. "(It's) a serious economic effect."
Paul Morris, executive director of admissibility requirements for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the agency has discretionary authority to address last-minute travellers "on a case-by-case basis as they arise."
Canada has long advocated taking until 2009 to get the security plan right and supports high-tech driver's licences as alternatives to passports.
British Columbia and Washington state are conducting a pilot project to see if enhanced licences that include proof of citizenship will work.
Canadians who fly into the United States have needed a passport since Jan. 23.
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once again schmuckie proves why he is the worst senator in this great country’s history.
Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.
I think this is the second time I agreed with Chuck. I go to Canada regularly. It’s a PITA to cross as it is. BTW, the first time I agreed with him was over the Dubai port deal.
It’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. People we don’t want here will continue to do so the same way they always have and law abiding citizens will pay the price.
Who doesn’t have a passport? - especially after 9/11?
The toll booths would have an added benefit in that the JBT would have opportunity to visually inspect each traveler and judge their additional tax enhancing potential.
Canada may not be our enemy, but with the wide-open border - what is stopping those we DON’T want here to cross? That is the point of ID/Passports is to at least try to make an effort to prevent such crossings.
Schumer is an all time doofus...How dumb are NYers with Hillary and him as senators? It is unbelievable!
The few times I’ve been to Canada in the last few years seem to have been freighted with changing rules on how to get back into the US. The only sure fire safe harbor is a passport. Hence, I’ll take mine along any time I think I might want to go into Canada. Mexico, IMHO, is a place I want to visit about as much as I want to visit Somalia.
Malicious people that we don't want here will not be thwarted by these new rules. Only law abiding people on both sides of the border will be inconvenienced by this.
Your post implies that I advocate a completely open border with Canada. This is not the case. It used to be that all you needed was proof that you are a US citizen (usually a driver's license and voter card) and you could cross easily. There is no reason why this should not be the case now.
All I need to know to disagree with Shumer is that 300,000 potential terrorists are sitting on our northern border. And since Ontario lets the muzzies practice Sharia law, well you get my drift.
Along the Mexican border the passport could do something to eliminate the long waiting lines that US citizens now endure as they queue with myriad non-citizens attempting to enter the USA. The wait would be greatly lessened if a document-reading turnstyle were used by those with US passports. This is said even though it is understood that political correctness won’t allow it. (US citizens are no better than anyone else, dontcha know!)
God I hate NY for electing such $hitheads as Hitlary and this POS!
You hit the nail on the head; we have a 3000 mile unguarded border with Canada. How is requiring passports (as opposed to birth certificates) going to accomplish anything? Seriously? What will it do, other than hinder commerce?
I don’t have a passport, and I have no intention of getting one.
Note also that all of the 911 hijackers cane to the US directly from Europe by commercial airline, presented their passports and visas in the normal manner then spent months traveling around the eastern United States, taking out drivers' licenses and taking flying lessons and attempting to buy crop duster aircraft, all without touching Canadian soil.
As to your assertion that Ontario allows Sharia law: This mis-perception has been rebutted numerous times on FR, yet the mis-perception still persists.
So I will say it again:
A former NDP cabinet minister, who was at the time an opposition member of the legislature, wrote a report suggesting that Sharia be permitted in family law arbitrations where both sides submit to such arbitration.
The suggestion was broadly opposed. Most particularly it was opposed by Muslim women who took the position that it would be coercive, Women would be subjected to enormous peer pressure to submit to Sharia arbitration and thereby to forfeit their rights under Ontario statutory law.
They pointed out that they had come to Canada to escape the kind of oppression inherent in Sharia law.
The Ontario government took the position that there can be only one kind of family law in Ontario and that it did not include Sharia. To make it stick, Ontario barred religious family law arbitration of any kind, regardless of the religion of the parties wishing to apply it.
To repeat: Canada does not have Sharia law. Ontario does not have Sharia law. Nor does any other Canadian province.
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