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Leahy says northern border passport requirement is dead
11/10/2006
Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus
By Darren Allen
Senator hits 'photo-op' security policy of Bush administration
MONTPELIER -- Americans will not be required to use passports to cross the Canadian border, and further attempts by the federal government "to do something just to say we're doing something" along the northern frontier will be thwarted by the newly Democratic Congress, Sen. Patrick Leahy said Thursday.
"Obviously, some people don't understand that there are big differences between the northern border and the southern border," Leahy said to a group of reporters in his Montpelier offices. "These aren't people who are trying to escape to a different life. We ought to be celebrating the fact that we have a country that loves us, that we can deal with, than to try to set up artificial barriers."
In his new role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Vermont Democrat will be in an even better position to stop what he calls a "photo-op" approach to border security.
Indeed, he was instrumental — along with Alaska Republican Ted Stevens — in getting the Bush administration to scrap its initial plan of requiring Americans to show passports at the Canadian border and to develop an alternative for use in 2009.
Now he wants to force the administration to "go back to the drawing board" to develop an affordable and secure alternative to passports. "It was almost like the administration wanted to do something just to say we're doing something," said Leahy, who has scoffed at the passport requirement and a pending proposal to study the need for a fortified fence along the world's longest undefended border.
Leahy's criticism of building walls and making Vermonters and other Americans use passports is shared by Vermont officials, including Gov. James Douglas. Thousands of Vermonters and Canadians cross the international border every day — in some cases, that border is crossed in the middle of libraries, theaters and even living rooms.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, more than 313,000 commercial trucks, 105,000 bus passengers, 2.14 million personal car passengers and about 15,000 pedestrians entered the United States through Vermont last year.
Douglas welcomed Leahy's promise to keep passports off the table and to make sure that any identification cards are not expensive or the personal information embedded in them easily hacked.
"I think that the proposals for passport requirements are bad," Douglas said. "Our entire congressional delegation and I were all on the same page against them."
Leahy also remains opposed to the now-dormant immigration checkpoint on Interstate 91, saying it snagged far too few illegal immigrants and inconvenienced too many Vermonters who were doing nothing more than driving to and from work.
Indeed, Leahy said that those types of checkpoints do little to detect anyone who wants to make across the border.
"We all live within an hour or so of the border," he said, acknowledging the many back roads and small villages that cross it. "Come on, let's be real here."
Leahy, clearly happy that his party wrested control of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, said that there is a real difference between making America more secure and making it seem more secure. And he wants to make sure that those in the Department of Homeland Security know it.
"I'd like to finally see real oversight of it," he said. "Let's put professionals in charge for a change."
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