Tightening up at the border
Strict new travel restrictions leading to more arrests at border entries
By Leslie Berestein

Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 12:01 a.m.




U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Nelson Perez checks documents for several passengers in this northbound van at the San Ysidro port of entry.Oral declarations of U.S. citizenship are no longer accepted.
Acceptable documents
U.S. citizens entering the United States at land or sea ports from Mexico, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean must present one of these documents:

• U.S. passport or passport card

• Trusted-traveler document, such as SENTRI

• Radio-chip-enhanced driver’s license available in some states, but not California

• Birth certificate or naturalization certificate for minors younger than 16

• Tribal identification

• Military identification for service members traveling under orders
In the months following the implementation of new travel-document requirements at U.S. land and sea port of entries last June, there was a spike in the number of people arrested along the southern border posing as U.S. citizens, customs officials say.

Between June 1 and the end of August, the latest period for which information is available, there was a 30 percent increase compared with the same period a year earlier in the number of people who tried to enter illegally by either declaring themselves to be U.S. citizens, posing as citizens using someone else’s documents, or using phony ones.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials aren’t sure why the increase has occurred, but believe it is tied to the introduction of stricter document requirements at the border that began last year. Among other things, it has been a year since oral declarations of citizenship, once an accepted practice, were ruled out and travelers were required to present some sort of identification.

The restrictions were further tightened in June, when the number of acceptable identity documents was narrowed from thousands — including common driver’s licenses and birth certificates — to just a handful. Documents accepted from citizens for re-entry are now generally limited to passports, passport cards and trusted-traveler documents, such as SENTRI passes, along with the radio-chip-enhanced driver’s licenses issued by some states, though not California.

Authorities say it doesn’t appear to be a case of those trying to sneak in not getting the message.

“I think the word has gotten around,â€