New border rules already causing delays, concerns
Agents increasing scrutiny ahead of change

http://www.journalnow.com
Sunday, October 21, 2007
EL PASO, Texas

U.S. border agents have stepped up scrutiny of Americans returning home from Mexico, slowing commerce and creating delays at border crossings not seen since the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The increased enforcement is part a dress rehearsal for new rules, scheduled to take effect in January, that will require Americans to show a passport or other proof of citizenship to enter the United States. The requirements were approved by Congress as part of anti-terrorism legislation in 2004.

Border officials said that agents along the southern border were asking more returning U.S. citizens to show a photo-identity document. At the same time, agents are increasing the frequency of what they call queries, where they check a traveler’s information against law-enforcement, immigration and anti-terror databases.

The new policy is a big shift after years when Americans arrived at land-border crossings, declared that they were citizens and were waved on through. Since authorities began ramping up enforcement in August, wait times at border stations in Texas have often stretched to two hours or more, discouraging visitors and shoppers and upsetting local business.

The delays could remain a fact of life across the southern border for the next few years, border officials said, at least until new security technology and expanded entry stations are installed and until Americans get used to being checked and questioned like foreigners. Last year, 234 million travelers entered the United States through land-border crossings from Mexico.

W. Ralph Basham, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, the agency that manages the borders, said that longer waits had resulted from added security policies at border stations that in many cases were aging, outmoded and facing surging traffic. Saying that the new document checks were a “security imperative,â€