 |
|
|
 News from Around the Americas | October 2007 
Texas Border Residents Dash for Passports
 Lynn Brezosky - San Antonio Express-News
go to original
 |  | he passport requirement is being phased in as part of the U.S. State Department's Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which stems from the security crackdown after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. |  | |
Brownsville, Texas — Nereida Herrera, 24, sat with her mother Celia in a part of the main post office here that lately has been dubbed the "passport fair," clutching a number and watching the electronic sign change from 41 to 42.
Her number was 54, and she'd already been waiting two hours.
"There's people that go in with, like, four or five family members. Each family gets one number," she said.
The rush to obtain passports to meet new Homeland Security requirements is especially acute on the Texas-Mexico border, which people routinely cross to visit family or work.
Such trips increase in the winter, when retirees from the Midwest and Canada can be spotted filling prescriptions in border town pharmacies or sipping margaritas in border town bars. Many never had a passport and balk at the $97 cost.
Statistics kept by the Rio Grande Valley Partnership, a regional chamber of commerce, show more than a million crossings to Mexico over the Valley's nine international bridges for the month of June alone. Of those, 233,917 were pedestrians, which averages to about 7,800 people walking across each day.
Herrera said she crosses every week or so to have dinner with relatives in Matamoros, just opposite Brownsville.
Alejandro Gonzalez, a 26-year-old who was next in line, said he had taken a day off from work at the Brownsville school district to make sure he got his passport. He makes weekend trips to see family in Ciudad Victoria.
At the county courthouse a few blocks away, Patricia and Ernesto Garrido also waited, passport applications in hand. Once a month, they visit family and shop in Coahuila, Mexico.
"Or sometimes we go if we need to go to the doctor. My father-in-law, he is very sick right now. You never know. Things happen," Patricia Garrido said.
When the U.S. Postal Service recently held passport fairs at five Valley locations, the response was enormous, with lines out the door. More than 2,700 applications were taken, with more than 1,000 of them accepted at the McAllen Chamber of Commerce.
Jacqueline Harley-Bell, spokeswoman for the U.S. Passport Agency in Houston, said the agency is dealing with the higher volume by recruiting more staff and asking colleges, universities, libraries and other places to accept applications.
The locations are being paid a $30 per application execution fee as an incentive, she said.
The passport requirement is being phased in as part of the U.S. State Department's Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which stems from the security crackdown after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Initially, all U.S. citizens re-entering the country through airports were to have passports by January 2007. The requirement was to be expanded to land and seaport entry in January 2008.
Previous regulations allowed U.S. citizens to travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean without a passport. At present, one can cross a land border from Mexico with just a verbal declaration of citizenship.
Area politicians and business leaders were among those who vigorously fought the passport requirement as well as US-VISIT, a biometric security program. They feared the requirements would kill tourism for neighbor cities across the border and hurt the region's economy by slowing bridge traffic for document checks.
Even now, it can take two hours to get across the bridges. Area radio stations broadcast rush hour wait times to help people choose the least-congested moment.
The protests paid off. The land port requirement has been pushed back to an unspecified date in the summer of 2008, although after Jan. 31 people will need a driver's license or other government issued photo identification plus proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate.
The new exit requirement for US-VISIT, which would require people to have biometric identity cards scanned as they leave the country, is still in the research and planning stages.
Few in the Valley seem to know that the deadline has been pushed back, and State Department spokesman Steve Royster said the confusion was widespread. He encouraged people to visit the State Department Web site, http://travel.state.gov for information.
"A lot of it is you hear about an event like that (the passport fair), you figure 'they're standing on line, I should be too,'" he said. "It is a good idea to get your passport ahead of time, but there isn't a need to rush or inconvenience yourself because there still is a good deal of time."
Another complaint was that the Texas-Mexico border population is largely poor. Getting passports for a family of five ($97 for adults, $82 for children) would be a $440 setback.
State Department regulations on children crossing back from Canada or Mexico are vague. Royster said plans were still pending, with exceptions possible for large groups of children.
Kelly Klundt, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said a "card format passport" would be introduced in the spring at about half the price of a regular passport, geared specifically for travel to Mexico or Canada.
Mike Willis, executive director of the South Texas Manufacturers Association, said questions abound for more than 2,000 managers, engineers, and other professionals who commute from Hidalgo County to Mexican border factories.
Many have gone through screening and background checks to qualify for a SENTRI pass that lets them cross on a dedicated fast lane. Would they now have to stop and have their passport checked?
Klundt said SENTRI users were generally clear to go across, but might on occasion have their documents checked.
Gilberto Salinas, spokesman for the Brownsville Economic Development Corp., said the passport rush was just another challenge for the border region.
"It's just a part of life. People have got to get used to it," he said.
David Vallejo, 52, agreed. The Brownsville resident delivers products from a San Antonio-based company to Reynosa and Matamoros factories. He was in line for a passport Thursday.
"I think it's just more money for the government," he said. "But I guess it is a way to identify everybody."
lbrezosky@express-news.net |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us