Key Senate
Panel OKs Leahy-Stevens Amendment
On The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI),
Delaying Implementation Of The Pass Card System
WASHINGTON
(Thursday, June 29) -- The Senate Appropriations Committee
Thursday approved an amendment authored by Senator Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.) and Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to
delay implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel
Initiative (WHTI) for 17 months, until June 1, 2009, and to
require the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of
State to certify to Congress that several standards are met
before the program moves forward.
Leahy and Stevens included their
amendment in two separate funding bills -- for the Department of
Homeland Security and for the Department of State -- that passed
the Appropriations Committee on Thursday. Leahy is a senior
member of the Appropriations Committee and is the Ranking Member
of its Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related
Programs, which handled the Senate’s work in writing the annual
spending bill. He is also a senior member of the Homeland
Security Subcommittee.
The amendment parallels the
17-month delay included in the amendment that Leahy and Stevens
successfully added to the Senate-passed immigration reform
package. Because the future of the immigration bill now is
clouded, they have worked to attach the amendment also to
must-pass legislation like these two appropriations bills.
Leahy says that, because of the
lack of sufficient coordination on the Passport Card (or “PASS
Card”) system between DHS and State and between the
Administration and the Government of Canada, the system is “a
train wreck on the horizon.” Leahy adds: “It will be far
easier and less harmful to fix these problems before this system
goes into effect than to have to mop up the mess afterward.”
In addition to delaying
implementation, the Leahy-Stevens Amendment also includes
prerequisites for implementation of WHTI that they have largely
drawn from another amendment added to the Senate’s immigration
bill, the Coleman-Dorgan-Leahy-Stevens Amendment. The
Leahy-Stevens Amendment requires DHS and the State Department to
meet these standards before implementing the Passport Card
system:
1.
Ensure that the technology for any
Passport Card meets certain security standards – and that DHS
and State agree on that technology.
2.
Share the technology with the
governments of Canada and Mexico.
3.
Justify the fee set for the Passport
Card.
4.
Develop an alternative procedure for
groups of children traveling across the border under adult
supervision with parental consent.
-
Install all necessary
technological infrastructure at the ports of entry to
process the cards and train U.S. agents at the border
crossings in all aspects of the new technology.
6.
Make the Passport Card available for
international land and sea travel between the United States and
Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and Bermuda.
7.
Establish a unified implementation
date for all sea and land borders.
[Text of the
amendment is below.]
LEAHY-STEVENS AMENDMENT
At the end of
the bill, insert the following:
Section XXX.
Section 7209(b)(1) of the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-458;
8 U.S.C. 1185 note) is amended by striking from “(1) Development
of plan.—The Secretary” through “7208(k)).” and inserting the
following:
“(1) Development of plan and
implementation.—
(A) The Secretary of Homeland
Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall
develop and implement a plan as expeditiously as possible to
require a passport or other document, or combination of
documents, deemed by the Secretary of Homeland Security to be
sufficient to denote identity and citizenship, for all travel
into the United States by United States citizens and by
categories of individuals for whom documentation requirements
have previously been waived under section 212(d)(4)(B) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(4)(B)). This
plan shall be implemented not later than 3 months after the
Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security make
the certifications required in subsection (B), or June 1, 2009,
whichever is earlier. The plan shall seek to expedite the
travel of frequent travelers, including those who reside in
border communities, and in doing so, shall make readily
available a registered traveler program (as described in section
7208(k)).
(B) The Secretary of Homeland
Security and the Secretary of State must jointly certify to the
Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and the House of
Representatives that the following criteria have been met prior
to implementation of Section 7209(b)(1)(A) --
(i.)
the National Institutes of Standards
and Technology has certified that the card architecture meets
the International Organization for Standardization ISO 14443
security standards, or justifies a deviation from such standard;
(ii.)
the technology to be used by the
United States for the passport card, and any subsequent change
to that technology, has been shared with the governments of
Canada and Mexico;
(iii.)
an agreement has been reached with
the United States Postal Service on the fee to be charged
individuals for the passport card, and a detailed justification
has been submitted to the Committees on Appropriations of the
Senate and the House of Representatives;
(iv.)
an alternative procedure has been
developed for groups of children traveling across an
international border under adult supervision with parental
consent;
(v.)
the necessary technological
infrastructure to process the passport cards has been installed,
and all employees at ports-of-entry have been properly
trained in the use of the new technology;
(vi.)
the passport card has been made
available for the purpose of international travel by United
States citizens through land and sea ports of entry between the
United States and Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean and Bermuda;
and
(vii.)
a single implementation date for sea
and land borders has been established.”.
# # # # #
