U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted a video on its Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) website, www.getyouhome.gov, designed to show U.S. and Canadian citizens how to use new travel documents at the border when crossing by land.
Many new travel documents that comply with WHTI are embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, including passport cards, some driver’s licenses and the Nexus, Sentri and FAST cards.
The cards can be read automatically when travelers enter the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The video shows travelers the steps to follow as they approach a U.S. land port of entry with an RFID-enabled travel card, as follows:
• Stop at the entry to the inspection lane and wait for a signal to move forward.
• Each passenger removes the travel card from its protective sleeve and holds it up with the flat front face of the card toward a window on the driver’s side of the vehicle. The RFID-enabled cards will be read automatically while the vehicle proceeds to the inspection booth.
• Stop at the inspection booth, and be prepared to present documents for all travelers in the vehicle to the customs officer.
The land-crossing phase of WHTI will be implemented on June 1. In anticipation of the launch, Customs and Border Protection installed RFID readers in more than 350 lanes at 39 points of entry on the U.S. northern and southern borders. These points of entry process more than 95% of land border traffic, DHS said.
The DHS said the next generation of border-crossing cards, for use by Mexican citizens to enter the U.S. to visit and shop, also are RFID-enabled.