DHS Holds Firm on Passport Regs

The State Department may be overwhelmed trying to process the new applications that have rolled in due to regulations requiring passports for air travel to Mexico, Canada, Bermuda or the Caribbean, but the Homeland Security Department says that shouldn't tempt Congress to delay rules scheduled to go into effect starting next year that also would require passports for land and sea travel to these destinations. A growing move in Congress to delay the land and sea requirement "is just simply not acceptable to us," DHS spokesman Russ Knocke tells USA Today. Right now, he notes, border agents have to examine up to 8,000 different forms of identification that people can present when trying to get into the country.