Busy border bureaucrats

The Orange County Register: The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it plans to tighten the identification requirements along the U.S.-Canadian border as of Jan. 31, when it will no longer simply allow either Americans or Canadians to come into the country simply by presenting a driver’s license and declaring their citizenship. Not only would this new requirement create additional delays along the border and cost border communities money, it is in direct defiance of a law just passed by Congress.

In short, this initiative is bureaucratic arrogance of breathtaking proportion.

Implementation

It’s not that tightening identity requirements along the northern border is necessarily a bad idea. But doing so will be difficult and expensive — perhaps impossible — to implement just now, in a matter of days.

Congress recognized that reality when it passed a law postponing until 2009 the implementation of a 2004 rule requiring a passport and proof of citizenship, rather than the more relaxed standards that have worked fairly well for years.

You may remember that the DHS was forced to suspend a similar rule for air travelers last summer when the requirement to show a passport created a huge backlog at U.S. passport offices. Forcing U.S. citizens to get a passport if they want to go to Canada and return could create a similar jam.