Author: hillman (---.coqui.net)
Date: 11-04-06 06:22
The following is the latest up-to-date info on passport use in relation to PR.
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The National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP) is concerned that travel agents are misinterpreting the new passport requirements for US citizens traveling to the Caribbean by erroneously including Puerto Rico as a location requiring a passport for entry and reentry into the United States. “We have received calls from a number of people traveling to Puerto Rico telling us that their travel agents have informed them that they now need passports to travel to and from Puerto Rico,” explained Angelo Falcón, the Institute’s President, “and we tell them that this is not true.”
The United States Department of State has just issued their Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requiring that by Jan. 1, 2008, travelers to and from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Panama, Mexico and Canada must have a passport or other secure, accepted document to enter or re-enter the United States. This initiative is based on the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. However, the State Department also points out that:
“The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative will not affect travel between the United States and its territories. U.S. citizens traveling between the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa will continue to be able to use established forms of identification to board flights and for entry.”
For further information on this Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, see:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2225.html
“There are still many Americans, including, apparently, travel agents, out there who do not know that Puerto Rico is a part of the United States and that the people of Puerto Rico are United States citizens,” Falcón stated. “Misunderstandings like this passport business are, unfortunately, all too common, and require Puerto Rican businesses, community-based oranizations and the government of Puerto Rico to correct his bad information within our community to make sure that our people are not needlessly inconvenienced and pay unnecessary fees,” he concluded.
The National Institute for Latino Policy is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy center established in 1982 to address Latino issues.
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