Law Could Tie Up Border Canadians Not Exempt From Law Requiring Documentation

Canadian officials and some U.S. lawmakers are gearing up to fight a section of a new American law that they say will cause enormous traffic delays on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border if it takes effect as written.

Canadian ambassador Raymond Chretien said here Tuesday that the law “would go against everything our two countries have tried to achieve in the last three years” through measures easing U.S.-Canada travel and trade.

Rep. John LaFalce, D-N.Y., who met with Chretien on Tuesday to discuss the issue, joined the ambassador at a news conference in criticizing the 1996 law. They said Canadians should be exempt from the section of it that requires the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to start documenting the entry and exit of all non-U.S. citizens by Sept. 30, 1998.

When it was passed, section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, gave the INS two years to develop an automated system to collect and match records of all aliens entering and leaving the United States.

The key authors of the act, former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., and Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, have told Canadian officials that the law was not intended to apply to Canadian citizens, who have historically needed only to provide proof of their citizenship to enter the United States.

LaFalce said Tuesday that “there’s a world of difference between the United States and Canada and the United States and other countries. I think what (Congress) had in mind was dealing with the southern border problems.”

But because Canadians are not specifically excluded from the new visa requirements, Canada is worried about INS plans to test a new automated documentation system at the Thousand Islands Bridge between New York and Canada.