Beginning Oct. 26, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials will enforce federal requirements that foreign travelers entering the United States must carry machine-readable passports or present a nonimmigrant visa
Published:
27 October 2004 y., Wednesday
If a traveler does not have such documents, CBP officials could grant a one-time exemption to admit the traveler, who will then receive a letter explaining the requirements. Travelers may be refused entry during subsequent visits if they do not obtain the passport or visa.
"These are prudent steps to ease travelers into these new documentation requirements," said Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security Department's undersecretary for border and transportation security, in a prepared statement. "The United States is a welcoming nation and we do not want to turn people away because they do not possess the newly required passport or a valid nonimmigrant visa."
The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 established the deadline as Oct. 1, 2003 — and extended it to Oct. 26 — for travelers from the 27 Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries to carry machine-readable passports with biometric identifiers when entering this country.
Machine-readable passports and biometric identifiers are different requirements. Congress extended the deadline for the VWP countries to include biometrics until Oct. 26, 2005, because many foreign officials said it was a technologically complex process.
A machine-readable passport contains biographical data using International Civil Aviation Organization standards, according to the State Department Web site on the VWP.
Šaltinis:
fcw.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
The European Commission announced today the award of three of the six contracts for the procurement of Galileo’s initial operational capability.
more »
The Applications of Students from the New EU Countries to UK Universities Have Shot up by Almost 140 Percent
more »
Convergys Corporation, the global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services, announced that it has signed a contract to license its Infinys(TM) software to Romania Telecom
more »
Welcome to seminar "Education and Training for the Knowledge Economy" on 29 July, 2004!
more »
With television cameramen hovering, Qualcomm chief executive Irwin Jacobs sat in the front row of coach and made one of the first legal cell phone calls from a commercial jetliner
more »
The rights and wrongs of using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on humans have been debated since the tracking tags reached the technological mainstream
more »
Super telescope aims to unlock clues to life beyond earth
more »
France's education minister has vowed that a ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools will be enforced when the new term starts in September
more »
For the
first time the Diplomas of Master Degree in Information and Communication were
handed to Vilnius University International Center of Knowledge Economy and
Knowledge Management seniors on the 15 of June at 10
o’clock at the
St.
Johns’
Church.
more »
The Chess school of Anatolin Karpov has been open
more »
Russia and Turkmenistan begin talks to divide Caspian Sea bottom in Ashgabat
more »