Recent Stories with tag customs

There is one very important feature about your Washington State Enhanced Driver's License that you should know. It's good for crossing the border into Canada and Mexico (and Bermuda and the Caribbean)--but only by land or sea. Not by air. If you're flying there, make sure your passport is ready to fly with you. 

Don't have an EDL? See my previous story, "So You Want an Enhanced Washington Driver's License": 

Seattle residents have two EDL choices: the downtown DMV office or what's charmingly known to the DMV as Seattle-West. At the Seattle-West (known to locals as "West Seattle") location, they only take walk-ins for EDL applications, and stop taking applications 30 minutes before closing (closing weekdays is 5 p.m., Saturday, 2:30 p.m.).

The subtitle of this story is, "I ruin my vacation so you don't have to," since I discovered this useful fact while failing to fly into Mazatlan this past weekend. I thought about renewing my passport by appointment (which you can do if you have proof you're traveling in 14 days or less), but I was also sick with the flu. As it happens, I was sick with the flu when I got my last passport pictures taken, so I've been officially red-eyed and pasty for a full decade, and couldn't face another ten years of that. It was also a courtesy to my fellow travelers. ... (more)

The elation over the extension of the second daily Amtrak run between Seattle and Vancouver is shared north and south of the border, despite the contretemps being instigated by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), who wanted someone on the U.S. side to pay some $550,000 per year to defray customs inspection costs.

Washington's Governor Gregoire was "vexed" by the CBSA's original move, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson eventually bent ministerial ears in Canada as well.

Crosscut broke down those costs as $1,500 per train, which the Washington State Department of Transportation, which sponsors the route, was unwilling to pay itself, or try to extract from passengers in the form of higher ticket prices. WSDOT Secretary Paula Hammond estimated the economic benefit to Vancouver at almost $12 million. (The CBSA, in turn, argued that they'd only agreed to waive the staffing costs for a pilot project lasting the duration of the Olympics, and weren't sure the post-Olympics tourism would bring the same economic boost.)

The potential economic benefit played a large part in the announcement Canada's Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews that "the border services agency has reallocated about $800,000 to cover the cost of the second U.S. Amtrak train into Vancouver per day," as CTV News reports. Essentially, the train has a year to prove that it's a net money-maker for the province. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson hailed the decision as a "no-brainer."

Through the rest of October, by the way, train passengers can snap up promotional offers from twelve different Vancouver attractions.

Ex-Green Beret Michael Yon has been making a good living as an independent war correspondent, blogging his way through Iraq and Afghanistan, for some years now. He's been in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, on CNN and FOX News.

But when he refused to tell "border bullies" (customs officials? TSA?) at the SeaTac airport how much money he made, they handcuffed him. He was eventually "rescued" by Port of Seattle police. "No country has ever treated me so badly," he added in another Facebook update, and included Afghanistan and Singapore in that list.

Airport security is understandably tight at the moment, following the Christmas Day failure to prevent a bomber from boarding not one but two flights. But it's difficult to see what self-reported income would add to airport security. And I'm not aware of any rules stating that U.S. citizens have to declare their income before being readmitted to the country.

Hey, welcome to Seattle, Michael!