DHS Announces Final Rule on WHTI Compliance - Full Compliance to be Required June 1, 2009
On March 27, 2008, DHS announced the final rule for the land and sea portion of WHTI (the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative).
The WHTI final rule requires travelers to present a passport or other
approved secure document denoting citizenship and identity for all land and sea travel
into the United States and the requirements are effective June 1, 2009. The DHS is giving plenty of notice so that everyone has time to get themselves a WHTI-compliant document.
When it announce the final rule, DHS also announced that it is designating the
Washington State Enhanced Driver’s License (EDL) a WHTI-compliant document and as of March 24, Washington State had already scheduled more than 18,600 appointments for EDL interviews and issued more than 6,400 EDLs.
The new Passport Cards (see me earlier blog about them) are WHTI-compliant and the Department of State is already accepting applications for them.
The DHS announcement comes about two months after January 31, 2008, when DHS ended acceptance of oral declarations alone of identity and citizenship at the land borders. Since then, U.S. and Canadian citizens ages 19 and older have been asked to present proof of identity and citizenship. Children ages 18 and under are currently asked only to
present proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. The change was the first step in implementing WHTI fully on June 1, 2009 when travelers will be required to present a single WHTI compliant document denoting both citizenship and identity when seeking entry into the United States through a land or sea border. (The WHTI secure document
requirement is already in place for all air travelers.)
Here is a link to the DHS Question and Answer Fact Sheet on WHTI.
