WASHINGTON-- Nearly 740,000 Americans have ordered passport cards, the new document being offered by the State Department to speed border crossings by U.S. citizens traveling to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
Beginning in June, travelers will be required to present documents proving both citizenship and identity when entering the U.S. through a land or sea border. For Americans who drive to Canada or Mexico or cruise regularly to the Caribbean, but who do not expect to fly abroad, the passport card is a cheaper, smaller, more portable alternative to a conventional passport book.
The card is especially popular with Americans who live in border states where it's not unusual to drive back and forth to Canada or Mexico. Residents of four border states -- Texas, California, Michigan and New York -- lead the country in the number of residents holding passport cards, according to Rima J. Vydmantas, a spokeswoman for the State Department's Consular Affairs Bureau.
The passport card, the size of a credit card or driver's license, has a photo and identification information printed on it, like a driver's license. It also contains a chip with a number that allows border officials to instantly retrieve relevant data from a government database.
It's not valid for air travel.
Passport cards, which are good for 10 years, cost $45, $35 for children younger than 16. Applications can be made at any passport-processing site. If you already have a passport but want the card anyway because of the convenient size or quick scanning, the cost is $20 and it can be ordered by mail.
For details on how and where to get a passport card, see www.travel.state.gov. Processing time for applications for both passport books and passport cards is about three weeks for routine applications. Expedited service is not available for passport cards, but for passport books, expedited service takes about two weeks.
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