The news that Mainers going to Canada would need passports in a few years was met with immediate outcry. Residents of communities with strong ties to Canada are naturally concerned about increasing border restrictions and their effect on everything from business to cultural ties. An additional document does not necessarily mean that those ties will weaken, but it could make them more difficult to maintain, especially if the United States continues to separate itself from Canada.

The biggest concern, however, should be that requiring passports to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders will lead to a false sense of security. State Department officials say the change, which was included in the intelligence bill passed by Congress last year, is necessary to stop terrorists from entering the country. Past experience shows that, aside from the highly publicized millennium plot suspect, few terrorists try to come into the United States from Canada or Mexico. All of the Sept. 11 hijackers were in the United State legally, although some of them probably should not have been. None used Canada or Mexico as a gateway to the United States.

Tighter border restrictions could drive terrorists determined to enter the United States to do so in the vast unmanned woods, especially along the U.S.-Canada border.

American officials have long been concerned that Canada’s policies toward immigrants are too lenient. Although it is easier to get into Canada as an immigrant, it is still difficult to become a Canadian citizen, according to Howard Cody, a University of Maine political science professor specializing in Canadian relations. Those seeking citizenship need an existing Canadian citizen to support their application.

There are also concerns that the Canadian passport is easier to falsify than that issued by the U.S. government. Under an agreement signed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the two countries agreed to bolster their border security. The 32-point plan included upgrading both countries’ passports.

According to a Dec. 2004 status report on the Smart Border Action Plan by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada will begin issuing a “smart-chip” enabled passport, using facial recognition biometrics, by the middle of this year. The United States is set to begin pilot production of passports with embedded biometrics this year and this new security technology will be included in all new U.S. passports by the end of the year.

The U.S. Customs Service had better be prepared to issue a lot of these new passports by 2008, the date by which the new rules, which also apply to the U.S.-Mexican border, go into effect. Eighty percent of Americans currently don’t have passports.

On one level, requiring a passport is not a big deal. Basically, the rules replace one form of documentation – a driver’s license – with a more secure passport. Residents of other countries are used to carrying a passport with them at all times.

On another, however, the rules further the separation of America from Canada. Especially in small communities along the border, the distinction between the two countries is blurred. The passport requirement, following other recent restrictions on border crossings, are making the boundary more distinct, further distancing

the United States from its northern neighbor. That may be the biggest downside of this change.