U.S. Acts to Notify Foreigners of Tougher Rules for Visits

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/11/politics/11travel.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=>

The New York Times

September 11, 2004

U.S. Acts to Notify Foreigners of Tougher Rules for Visits
By RACHEL L. SWARNS

ASHINGTON, Sept. 10 - Only three weeks before sweeping policy shifts begin
affecting foreign visitors at American airports, officials say they are
intensifying their efforts to inform travelers from more than 20
industrialized nations to prepare for tough new entry requirements.

By the end of September, tourists from 27 nations, including Britain,
Germany, Japan and Australia, will for the first time be photographed and
fingerprinted on arrival. And beginning at the end of October, passengers
from 22 countries, mostly in Europe, must carry machine-readable passports
in order to visit without visas.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security plan to start advertising
in newspapers in Britain and Australia later this month, informing
travelers from those countries that airport inspectors here will start
collecting digital fingerprints and photographs from them on Sept. 30. The
officials, who have highlighted the new requirement in meetings with trade
groups and journalists in London and Germany in recent months, also plan to
attend a trade show in Hong Kong in coming weeks.

On Wednesday, the State Department sent a cable to its consulates and
embassies in the affected nations, encouraging consular officials to expand
their efforts to inform travelers about the need to have machine-readable
passports by Oct. 26. Consular officials have already been posting
advisories on their Web sites and meeting with chambers of commerce, travel
groups and news organizations, the department says.

Tourists from Europe and other industrialized countries are not typically
required to apply for visas to visit the United States, but they will have
to do so if they do not have machine-readable passports by the Oct. 26
deadline. Officials at the Travel Industry Association of America, which
represents the nation's largest airlines, hotels, cruise lines and car
rental companies, say some people in Spain, Italy, France and Switzerland
still lack such passports.

Travel industry officials commend Homeland Security for its efforts but say
the State Department is doing too little to inform travelers about the
machine-readable policy.

 Rick Webster, director of government relations for the Travel Industry
Association, said that without a concerted publicity campaign, some
travelers might arrive at American airports without either the required
passport or a visa.

 Starting next week, the industry group says, it will send hundreds of
e-mail messages to travel associations, foreign journalists and others to
advise them of the changes.

Angela Aggeler, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said officials had
been using various means, among them getting articles published in European
newspapers, to spread word.

The new policy that requires tourists from 27 industrialized nations to be
fingerprinted and photographed affects travelers from 22 European countries
and Brunei, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand who can currently
travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. Because
students and other visitors from those nations who stay for more than three
months are required to carry visas, they have already been subjected to
these new security measures, which took effect for all visa carriers in
January regardless of country of origin.

The policy that requires travelers to carry machine-readable passports will
now affect 22 of those 27 nations. The remaining five - Andorra, Belgium,
Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and San Marino - adopted the American standard in
2003.
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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