http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...s_air_travel_2

Whining bastards...checking everyone's passports at our two land borders is literally the least we can do to help stop terrorists from using an already known route into the country...

if you want to leave or enter our country, you need a passport...it's the same everywhere in the world, why the hell would you expect different?!

 

It reminds me of that recent ridiculous report posted here that suggested the US was the worst place to travel because of the 5 minute encounter foreigners have to go through with US customs agents at the airport. Whining bastards is right.

Makes me wonder how foreigners view America. They must get wrong impression regarding the freedoms here. They must think that the "land of opportunity" and the free comes without rules, precautions, and boundaries.

This all boils down to laziness. We all know how vulnerable the borders are yet nodoby wants to actually do real work there.

 

I doubt it's going to hurt any state/country's tourism income THAT much. I've been to Canada once and Mexico about 5 times. Never once have I not taken or been asked for my Passport (all traveled by air). Seriously, it's not hard to get your picture taken, wait 6 weeks, get your passport in the mail, and present it when arriving in 1 of the 3 countries. They stamp it, ask you a few questions, and you move on. I agree with Salty, it is about Laziness.

 

Not *****ing but I guarrantee it will hurt Windsor, ON tourism along with many other Canadian border cities. Windsor relies on the 19 year old crowd to jam into their bars every weekend from the metro-detroit area. What 19 year old is going to pay the 100 + bucks it costs to get a passport just to go to Canada for a night of pre-21 year old drinking?

 

Every single one I've ever known would. You could make it cost 500 and my friend would have gotten summer jobs to be allowed to drink legally without having to have there older friends go buy it for them.

 

Yeah, people buy fake IDs to drink for as much or more than passports cost...

 

Thats a negative. I got my fake for 20 bucks back in the day. Worked great too....

What people don't realize is that 150 bucks is alot of money especially in Michigan where the economy is so damn terrible. I'm not saying no one will get their passport to go to Canada to drink but you had better believe the tourism from the American side of the border to the Canadian side will definately go down. To say that it won't is naive at best.

 

Key. You can't tell me I didn't witness 4 of my friends buying CA fakes for $120 each...it happened

 

Hey what are you saying? I'm old?

Besides you can't use the California example because everything is way more expensive in CA

 

$20, pshhh, prolly didn't even scan (aka: refused at any college town bar). And why not fork out the money for the passport, and not have to suffer any repructions of having a fake id?

 

faking passports will be easy soon nuff..

just take a few hundred in equipment, a laptop, and some dumbass who doesnt carry his wallet in a mesh shielded protector... (ok ok so i went a tid bit overboard.. but still the point carrys)

 

Hey it worked great when I needed it. I probably still have it laying around somewhere.

My point is simple. You said it won't affect anyones tourism and I say that it very obviously will.

Do I like the law, yes because that's how it should be but there are people that just can not afford to pay the money to buy a passport. Especially around here where the unemployment rate is the 2nd highest in the country behind Mississippi.

150 bucks is a mountain of money to some people right now.

I'm not worried about my trips to the casino in windsor though cause I have my passport already.

 

Cool. Your point though, makes me curious how many border towns there are where they rely on this type of "tourism". How far is this town in Canada from Detroit? Because I can't see people traveling more than an hour.

 

Detroit and Windsor are like sister cities. Literally accross the river from each other. Just a tunnel or a bridge away, which puts it about 20 minutes to 40 minutes from the northern suburbs.