DETROIT – The Detroit Regional Chamber is currently proposing that the federal government adopt the drivers license as the citizenship ID of choice for NAFTA border crossings by consolidating the approach to two separate, but closely related security initiatives that stand to impact not only the Detroit Region, but all US border crossings between Canada and Mexico.

In 2004 Congress passed the Intelligence Reform & Terrorism Prevention Act that was signed into law by President Bush in December of that year. One of it?s provisions is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), which is a mandate for the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop and implement a plan requiring citizens and foreign nationals to present a passport or other verifiable & secure document for proof of identity when entering the United States. This plan has been nicknamed the ?passport tax? because of the perception of forcing citizens to apply for a passport, and must be implemented by January 2008.

In May of 2005, Congress passed the Real-ID bill. This law sets national standards for driver?s licenses, providing for the first time the possibility of the equivalent to a national ID card. Key to this bill are that by 2008 states need to verify data with the feds and other states before the issue of a driver?s license. Failure to comply with the federal mandate of verifying the status of an individual in the country prior to issue of the drivers license would mean that residents of that state will not be able to use their state-issued ID for any federal purpose, including boarding domestic airline flights.

A further federal incentive to implement technology as a solution to improve border traffic came in March of 2005, when elected leaders of Mexico, Canada and the US announced the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), which called for advancing the common security and prosperity of all three nations. One of its key goals is to improve the legitimate flow of people and cargo at shared borders through use of advanced technologies.

Currently just over 20% of American?s have a passport. These documents are more cumbersome than driver?s licenses and generally not carried by citizens on a regular basis. A driver?s license, on the other hand, is currently issued to residents of a state with no regard to their citizenship. Birth certificates, which are also currently honored at border crossings, have no picture and must be used with picture ID.

No matter what document is finally decided upon, the system must change. Falsification of these documents is a rampant problem, with Hudson County NJ residents recently being told that the US State Department had declared all birth certificates issues from their office invalid pending the results of an investigation into the sale of false id?s by employees of the county.

While driver?s licenses are far more ubiquitous, they also have issues. A study of publicly reported crimes from 2003 indicated corrupt DMV employees sold 20,000 to 30,000 falsified licenses nationally. Suggestions of adding a fingerprint to the driver?s license would improve the document?s usefulness, but many issues remain to be resolved.

The Detroit Regional Chamber would like the US State Department to find an acceptable way for states to meet the needs of the Real-ID/Drivers? License Act (determining status in the country) and then allow states to place that information on the drivers? license, either encoded in it or printed on it. Under this plan, individuals would have the option of declining to have this information placed on the card. The DHS must provide states with a means of meeting this goal that will be acceptable to the agency in order to fulfill the requirement of WHTI.

DHS and the State Department must become engaged with the working group of drivers? license agencies from Michigan, Ontario and New York, as well as the Canadian Government, to ensure that the provisions of the Real-ID/Drivers License ACT are integrated into provincial and territorial drivers? licenses in Canada.

WHTI should be delayed until a successful trial of the Real-ID program for crossing the border can be run at a high volume border crossing.

All future implementations of WHTI should treat water crossings the same as a land border crossing.

Provisions must be made for minors in WHTI, so that parent & adult chaperones of school, church, sports team or youth group trips can manage child logistics, and unaccompanied older minors can obtain a state-issued ID card the same way an adult would.

The Canadian and American governments must ensure funds are made available to provide the public with information about the new drivers? license and how the changes in our standard ID benefit citizens and can be used for border crossings.

With a combined $1.2 billion dollars a day in trade and 5.2 million jobs on the line from our northern border crossings, this is not only a security issue, but a serious issue for our Metro Detroit economy.

For more information on the chamber?s position, please contact Sarah Hubbard, Vice President at http://www.noonwhti.com/