Does anyone know about the digital passports situation in France/US? My French sister-in-law says the US will be requiring them for entry to the US after Oct 1, but that France is not going to be ready - particularly, they are not set up to provide them for French residents living outside of France, as she does. She is concerned she will not have a valid passport for entry into the US. Has anyone heard about this?

Yes, there was an article in this past weekend's (July 27th) Washington Post Travel Section. The requirement is that passports be machine readable (such as the first page of current US passports).
Here's what the piece says:
"if you have friends or family from overseas who are accustomed to visiting the US, better alert them to a new requirement that their passports be machine-readable. Citizens of 27 countries can visit the US for up to 90 days without a visa. The 'visa waiver program' applies to nations of Western Europe [etc.].
But as of 1 October visitors from those countries will be turned away unless their passport is electronically coded. The new rule is already being enforced for citizens of Belgium whose passports US officials consider easy to counterfeit."
The article continues: "Half of all French passports are not machine readable.
Hope this helps.

Gocats,

Yes, this is a real problem - the US will be requiring MACHINE-READABLE passports for all foreign visitors as of Oct. 1 2003. My boss, who is in exactly the same situation as your sister-in-lay, was told by the consulate that they could not provide him with a machine-readable passport. He also has swiss citizenship however so it's not a big deal for him.

If your SIL doesn't get a new passport, she will need to get a visa to enter the US. While this is a pain, she will certainly be able to enter the country!

There is detailed info on the site of the US Embassy in France:
http://www.amb-usa.fr/consul/niv_newfr.htm#ppt

I would advise that your SIL make a major scene at the consulate - perhaps they will be able to produce a machine-readable passport after all...

Hope this helps,
Andre

Hmmmmm..I wonder if a "major scene" by someone of French nationality would play well at some of our embassies right now!

When are they going to start forcing people to have passports containing biometric data?

They're very serious about this. At the beginning of July this year a Belgian woman, who was travelling with her family to the US for a six week vacation, was held for 15 hours, handcuffed, strip-searched, fingerprinted and sent back to Brussels. She wasn't allowed to stand, use the phone or speak, nor could she write anything, so her three children and her companion had no idea what was happening to her. She didn't have the correct, machine-readable passport. Her passport had been issued in 2000. She had to get a different visa and spend $700 on a new ticket so that she could return to California and her family.

WTF?!

LOL Intrepid!!

I was suggesting that gocats' SIL make a scene at the FRENCH consulate where she lives!

Sometimes a little drama goes a long way

Andre

Barbara, that must be something else you're refering to. These new rules only go into effect on October 1st.

That said, this machine-readable crap is just ridiculous! It's only so the immigration officialy don't have to type the passport nr into their computers manually! And US citizens are exempted - as if that makes any sense. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot...

lilliehavfrue, I don't think there's a specific timetable for requiring biometric data yet, mainly because existing US passports aren't compatible either... Unlike the machine-readable joke, this would definitely improve security though.

Andre

Andre: THAT's a different story..and it may just work!!!
Lillehavfrue: the "drop dead" day is apparently 1 October 2003.

Current passports issued by the US State Department already ARE machine-readable and "crap" or not, get used to it.
Perhaps that bumper sticker that is starting to appear in the US: "Regime Change-November 2004" is beginning to make more sense!

"Current passports issued by the US State Department already ARE machine-readable".

Yes, but old non-machine-readable US passports will remain valid after the deadline, only foreign nationals have to meet the new requirement!

My point is just that this in no way improves security - it's just an unnecessary extra obstacle for people who might want to spend their vacation dollars in the US.

Living in Europe, it feels like there's already been a regime change in the States. Question is, will it last?

Andre

And so it is in the land of the freeand the home of the brave at least in the world of the phony President and the geniuses surrounding him....

A little thought would reveal that the US immigration service has no choice but to exempt US citizens. Other citizens without the proper type of passport can be returned to their home countries. Where would they send US citizens?

I suppose that they could start preventing US citizens without the proper type of passport from leaving the country in the first place.

They could send those US citizens to Guantanamo. That is where they send and keep other people that they don't like but they can't prove that they committed a crime. Officially, Guantanamo is not in the US, or so the US government says.

In order to use Guantanamo, we would first have to evict all those nice Taliban and Al Qaeda people that are trying so diligently to transform the world into a Muslim paradise where all Christians are slaves and all women are chattel. Perhaps we could send them to Hamburg, I hear that Al Qaeda members live quite comfortably there.

I think that the responses to this post have begun to degenerate.

Recall that the point is to prevent the use of false passports.

It's no different from trying to prevent counterfeiting of currency.

Hi Barbara,

If the rules go into effect Oct 1, how was it that the Belgian woman was detained this month?

PS,

I wrote too soon, and apologize to Barbara.

The story was published in the LA Times under the byline of Jean O. Pasco on July 5 and reports on an incident that is claimed to have occurred at LAX in June.

It appears that the rule went into effect for Belgium on May 15.

The full story can be found at http://billmon.org/archives/000316.html

I can find no other reference to it.

Thanks for all the information! I had no idea! I've passed this along. My sister-in-law is thinking she'll go to Paris for a new passport. Sounds like there may be a lot of upset people at the borders on October 1 and for awhile thereafter.