Most people know that beginning next January American boaters
reentering home waters from Canadian waters will be required to produce
a passport at a customs office.

The government is about to begin inserting "chips" in the passports.
May be a good idea to prevent forgeries, etc, but there are some
legitimate privacy concerns. It might be possible for
unauthorized persons to "read" your passport information
electronically, and then there's the possibility that the chips might
have a use or two that we aren't being told about (to help fight
terrorism, of course).

Anyway, if you don't want a microchip embedded in your passport for
whatever purpose the government might want to embed one, now is the
time to apply or renew. It's apparently already too late in Colorado..

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/sep...0906idchip.htm

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...
Most people know that beginning next January American boaters
reentering home waters from Canadian waters will be required to produce
a passport at a customs office.


Nice idea on paper...........not in the real world though. How do they plan
on enforcing this?

JimH wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...
Most people know that beginning next January American boaters
reentering home waters from Canadian waters will be required to produce
a passport at a customs office.


Nice idea on paper...........not in the real world though. How do they plan
on enforcing this?

They have been requiring returning boaters to go through customs since
forever.
They enforce it by putting you in jail if you don't.

Now to be clear, you don't need to report to Customs if you have only
been aboard your boat in Canadian waters and haven't 1)anchored, 2)
gone ashore, or 3) made contact with any other vessel.

In the past, it was common to come back through Customs with nothing
more than a
driver's license to establish your address and your own declaration
that you were a US citizen. In recent years, they tightened that up to
require presentation of evidence
"satisfactory to the customs examiner" that *proves* your citizenship.
Border agents have been hassling Americans returning without passports,
since the only document that a customs examiner has no choice except to
find "satisfactory" is a valid passport.
Most boaters in the Pacific NW travelling into Canadian waters now
carry passports, and the law tightens up to *require* passports
beginning in 2007.

I am 99.9% certain that the same law applies to people arriving by
automobile, train, and cars or buses.

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...

JimH wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...
Most people know that beginning next January American boaters
reentering home waters from Canadian waters will be required to produce
a passport at a customs office.


Nice idea on paper...........not in the real world though. How do they
plan
on enforcing this?

They have been requiring returning boaters to go through customs since
forever.
They enforce it by putting you in jail if you don't.

Now to be clear, you don't need to report to Customs if you have only
been aboard your boat in Canadian waters and haven't 1)anchored, 2)
gone ashore, or 3) made contact with any other vessel.

In the past, it was common to come back through Customs with nothing
more than a
driver's license to establish your address and your own declaration
that you were a US citizen. In recent years, they tightened that up to
require presentation of evidence
"satisfactory to the customs examiner" that *proves* your citizenship.
Border agents have been hassling Americans returning without passports,
since the only document that a customs examiner has no choice except to
find "satisfactory" is a valid passport.
Most boaters in the Pacific NW travelling into Canadian waters now
carry passports, and the law tightens up to *require* passports
beginning in 2007.

I am 99.9% certain that the same law applies to people arriving by
automobile, train, and cars or buses.


I have never checked into US customs when returning from a stay at
Leamington, Canada.

When returning from Canada by car you go through a US Customs checkpoint.
When returning from Canada by boat you go to your marina. ;-)

JimH wrote:


I have never checked into US customs when returning from a stay at
Leamington, Canada.

When returning from Canada by car you go through a US Customs checkpoint.
When returning from Canada by boat you go to your marina. ;-)

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass the fuel dock. Do not
collect $200. :-)


http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/...asureboats.doc

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...

JimH wrote:


I have never checked into US customs when returning from a stay at
Leamington, Canada.

When returning from Canada by car you go through a US Customs checkpoint.
When returning from Canada by boat you go to your marina. ;-)

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass the fuel dock. Do not
collect $200. :-)


http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/...asureboats.doc



In San Diego, you are to check in with customs even if you do not land in
Mexican waters. You can check in by phone, but you must check in.

Calif Bill wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...

JimH wrote:


I have never checked into US customs when returning from a stay at
Leamington, Canada.

When returning from Canada by car you go through a US Customs checkpoint.
When returning from Canada by boat you go to your marina. ;-)

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass the fuel dock. Do not
collect $200. :-)


http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/...asureboats.doc



In San Diego, you are to check in with customs even if you do not land in
Mexican waters. You can check in by phone, but you must check in.

Checking in by phone, under the I-68 and NEXUS provisions has become
far more restrictive in the last couple of years and will become even
more difficult in 2007. You will almost certainly need to appear with a
passport to obtain an I-68 or NEXUS clearance, if you can get one, and
you will need a clearance number for everybody aboard. Even when
reporting by telephone, Customs has the option to require you to
present yourself and your vessel for physical inspection at a customs
port of entry- and I think you had darn well better have your
passports.

JimH has been unknowingly violating the law, and it sounds as if he is
under the impression that most of his marina neighbors do the same
thing.

I guess if I were a terrorist trying to get into the US from Canada,
I'd try to land at a private marina in Ohio. Nobody there apparently
cares about customs regulations. :-)

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...

Calif Bill wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...

JimH wrote:


I have never checked into US customs when returning from a stay at
Leamington, Canada.

When returning from Canada by car you go through a US Customs
checkpoint.
When returning from Canada by boat you go to your marina. ;-)

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass the fuel dock. Do not
collect $200. :-)


http://www.cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/...asureboats.doc



In San Diego, you are to check in with customs even if you do not land in
Mexican waters. You can check in by phone, but you must check in.

Checking in by phone, under the I-68 and NEXUS provisions has become
far more restrictive in the last couple of years and will become even
more difficult in 2007. You will almost certainly need to appear with a
passport to obtain an I-68 or NEXUS clearance, if you can get one, and
you will need a clearance number for everybody aboard. Even when
reporting by telephone, Customs has the option to require you to
present yourself and your vessel for physical inspection at a customs
port of entry- and I think you had darn well better have your
passports.

JimH has been unknowingly violating the law, and it sounds as if he is
under the impression that most of his marina neighbors do the same
thing.

I guess if I were a terrorist trying to get into the US from Canada,
I'd try to land at a private marina in Ohio. Nobody there apparently
cares about customs regulations. :-)


Checking in by phone is probably more restrictive in Washington than San
Diego. As most of the boats fishing MX waters do not make landfall. It is
only 13 miles to the Coronado Islands and the offshore banks are further
out. Almost have to get to Ensenada to dock.

Calif Bill wrote:

Checking in by phone is probably more restrictive in Washington than San
Diego. As most of the boats fishing MX waters do not make landfall. It is
only 13 miles to the Coronado Islands and the offshore banks are further
out. Almost have to get to Ensenada to dock.

I suspect the laws are probably the same. I never heard of the Customs
regulations being regionally specific, and if you check the pamphlet I
linked for JimH you will see that everything is referred to on a
national basis.

Expect a much tougher time checking in by phone after the end of this
year. It's all part of the war on terror, I guess. If we get all the
border agents spending a lot more time hassling the honest people that
follow the law and report, that should make it all the easier for the
dishonest n'er do wells to sneak across undetected.
That said, it *was* a customs officer that made the stop in Port
Angeles in late December 1999 that snagged the guy headed to Los
Angeles to blow up the airport, or something, on Y2k day.

Calif Bill wrote:

Checking in by phone is probably more restrictive in Washington than San
Diego. As most of the boats fishing MX waters do not make landfall. It is
only 13 miles to the Coronado Islands and the offshore banks are further
out. Almost have to get to Ensenada to dock.

In fact, here's a link that outlines the new customs requirements in
January 2007 for all "air and sea" travel from other North American
countries to the US. Travelers arriving by private car get another year
before the full force of the new regs kick in.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html