Border Crossing Rules To Tighten

Americans Will Be Required To Show Passports To Re-Enter U.S.

(CBS/AP)  Americans will need passports to re-enter the United States from Canada, Mexico, Panama and Bermuda by 2008, part of a tightening of U.S. border controls in an era of terrorist threat, three administration officials said Tuesday.

Similarly, Canadians will also have to present a passport to enter the United States, the officials said.

The news comes as a controversy brews in Arizona where clusters of citizens who volunteered to watch for illegal immigrants and smugglers along a swath of the Mexican border passed their first night of full patrols without incident, authorities said Tuesday.

Law enforcement officials have expressed fear that the exercise could lead to vigilante violence or an accidental confrontation between armed volunteers and authorities. The volunteers, many of whom were recruited over the Internet, plan to watch the border in shifts 24 hours a day during April and report any illegal activity to federal agents.

Asked about the changes in an Associated Press interview, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States had to take every precaution to screen out "people who want to come in to hurt us."

Rice also said the changes were made after consultation with Mexico, Canada and others in the Western Hemisphere.

The announcement, expected later Tuesday at the State Department, will specify that a passport or another valid travel document will have to be shown by U.S. citizens, the officials said.

These include a document called Sentri that is used for Mexico travel or a Nexus for Canada travel.

Until now, Americans returning home from Canada have needed only to show a driver's license or other government-issued photo identification card.

"The new passport regulations were announced as a result of understandable security concerns, but the consequence of imposing the passport requirement and tighter enforcement on the Mexican border is that the administration will have to find a way to return to a debate on some version of the 'temporary worker' program for Mexican migrants that was proposed early in Bush's first presidency, otherwise, the escalating violence at the U.S.' southern border is sure to escalate," reports CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk.