Schumer critizes plan, which requires passport or birth certificate with license

By WILSON RING

PLATTSBURGH -- With new regulations for crossing the border going into effect today, the region is bracing for a change.

Travelers crossing the border between the United States and Canada now must show a passport or similar document or both a driver's license and a birth certificate.

The new rules are not sitting well with many.

"The Department of Homeland Security has decided to toss logic to the wind to ram this ill-devised restriction down the throat of our border communities," U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-Brooklyn) said in a statement.

"Plain and simple, this plan is the worst of both worlds: it promotes the use of easy-to-forge documents to travel into our country, and it threatens to create huge backlogs at our border communities that stifle cross-border commerce. The department should be focusing its energies on developing new documents that will both be secure and efficient."

Schumer issued a report entitled, "The Worst of Both Worlds," detailing how the new rules will hamper border crossings and compromise security.

The lengthy report accuses Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff of "double-talk" regarding the use of birth certificates.

The report highlights Chertoff's own past testimony questioning the security and efficiency of using birth certificates.

The report says that birth certificates can be easily forged and that about 8,000 different kinds of documents are used by people crossing the border.

"What it means is that there's no way that even the most accomplished Customs and Border Protection officer can be familiar with all those documents and in a position to quickly confirm whether they are real or fake," Schumer's report said.

Despite objections from Schumer, Rep. John McHugh (R-Pierrepont Manor) and other lawmakers, the new rules will go into effect today, and travelers will need to prepare.

Much of the business at two gas stations on U.S. Route 2 at Vermont's northwestern corner comes from Quebec residents who dart across the border into the United States to take advantage of lower gasoline prices, which can save them almost $1 a gallon.

Locals from Vermont, New York and Quebec who cross the border at Rouses Point regularly know of the changes in documentation.