Plan Your Meetings

Complying with the Western Hemisphere Travel Directive

According to the State Department, only 20 percent of Americans have valid passports. That could mean big trouble next Dec. 31, when American citizens will need a valid passport to reenter the country from Canada, Mexico, and Central or South America via air or sea.

“What we’re looking to do here is not to impose a passport requirement on people who want to come in and out of the country through the western hemisphere,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, addressing an audience at last month’s World Travel and Tourism Summit.

“We’re looking … to find a way to come up with a travel document that will be convenient, inexpensive, satisfy the requirements of the law, increase our security, but in fact, make it more efficient for people to come and go in and out of this country.”

To this end, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is developing a People Access Security Service (PASS) card, which they hope to distribute by early next year. The PASS card will be a wallet-sized card with biometric identification, such as a computer chip, that stores vital information. Existing trusted traveler programs such as FAST, NEXIS and SENTRI will be consolidated under the PASS system.