Hellobee Boards

Unless something is changing in the near future we have always just used a original birth certificate to cross by land. Rules are different by air and sea. Was your mIL clear that you will be crossing by land?

@abbydabbydoodlebug: uh. No. Then the clerk must've misunderstood your inlaws. We've gone dozens of times with the girls and with niece and nephews with birth certificates.

http://www.cbp.gov/travel/us-citizens/western-hemisphere-travel-initiative

@Grace: only for adults. It used to be just a drivers license but then post 9/11 adults needed valid passports. But still just birth certificate for kids.

We live near the border so we decided to get her a passport. We will be going up for the first time in a couple months, when she is three. Getting the passport for her was really painless and super easy to do. We filled everything out in person (both of us went, otherwise you need a letter from the non present parent).

@Grace: This is what I thought. I think it has been about 8ish years since they implemented this.

Yes, we traveled with my son he was just over a year old and he needed a passport to cross the border, this was in November.

We went to Canada by boat with our 1 year old last month and used birth certificate only.

@abbydabbydoodlebug:

@abbydabbydoodlebug: gotcha. I used to live in Texas, but we still went to Mexico and DR and Canada fairly frequently, so I can't imagine not having passports--although it is funny that they are valid for 10 years and both of the girls are only 3 months old in their pictures, haha.