Al G - 11-18-2007 at 09:14 AM
Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:04 pm (PST)
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Some discover too late that even infants need passports for Mexico flights
By Dermot Cole
Staff Writer
Published November 17, 2007
IF YOU PLAN to fly to Mexico with an infant, remember that even the smallest passengers
need passports.
Several Fairbanksans who did not get the proper papers for their kids discovered this only
when they showed up at the airport and were not allowed to take the child on the plane.
One way of getting a passport in a hurry is to call the Seattle passport agency at (206)
808-5752.
I talked to one dad with a 5-month-old who couldn't fly to Mexico with his family this
month, but departed one day late for Seattle, where he secured a passport for the child.
The cost was about $170, which didn't include rearranging air travel plans.
If you don't have a passport, the only place in Fairbanks to apply for one is at the
downtown post office, which now takes applications only by appointment from 10 a.m. to
3 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Meanwhile, the "Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative" put forward by the Bush
administration and Congress means that by the end of January, anyone crossing into
Canada by the land route will need a government ID, such as a driver's license and proof
of citizenship, which can be a birth certificate.
The government will "drastically reduce the types of identification" it will accept at the
border, according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
"It's going to mean no more waving people through, based on a nod and a wink," Chertoff
said in a news conference this month. "It's going to require people to show identification,
sometimes making them open up their trunk, putting the information in a database and
generally assuring the public at large that we have a better handle on who is coming into
the United States."
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is advising all Alaskans to acquire a passport because plans are in
the works to make the passport required for travel through Canada by next summer.
The Bush administration planned to have a wallet-sized "Passport Card" ready as a
substitute, but that program is behind schedule. Chertoff told reporters at a news
conference that the State Department is procuring the cards and they should be ready
early next year.
All of this could change if the Department of Homeland Security appropriation bill, which
includes an extension of the deadlines, becomes law. But the appropriation bills are held
up in a battle between Congress and the president.
Most of the attention on border issues concerns the fence with Mexico. The Bush
administration hopes to build 670 miles of fence by the end of 2008, if it gets the money
from Congress.