US Reportedly Plans to Photograph People Leaving Country by Vehicle at Border Crossings

Vehicles wait to enter Canada at the US/Canada Thousand Islands border crossing Lansdowne, Ontario, on Nov. 8, 2021. The Canadian Press/Lars Hagberg

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is working on a program to photograph everyone who leaves the country by vehicle, a government spokesperson says.

Photographs will be taken of each individual present in vehicles departing to Canada or Mexico, and the image will be matched to passports, visas, and travel documents, CBP spokesperson Jessica Turner told WIRED magazine in a May 9 article.

The United States does not currently have such a program and no timeline has been released on when it may start, but it would include an expansion of a current initiative that photographs those arriving in the United States,” Turner said.

“Although we are still working on how we would handle outbound vehicle lanes, we will ultimately expand to this area,” Turner said.

The goal of the new process is to “biometrically confirm” departure from the United States, Turner said, noting that photographs would be stored by the CBP.

“The encounter photos can be used for subsequent crossings to verify identity,” Turner said.

The Epoch Times contacted the CBP for comment but did not hear back by publication time.

The United States introduced new regulations in March requiring Canadian travellers aged 14 and older to register with the government if they intend to stay in the country for more than 30 days.

Travel documents will be issued for those who register and the documents need to be carried at all times, according to the U.S. government.

A bill recently proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives would, if enacted, permit Canadian snowbirds to extend their stay without requiring visas. Dubbed the Canadian Snowbird Visa Act, the bill looks to extend the number of days that Canadians can stay without requiring a visa from 180 to 240.

The proposal follows falling visitor numbers, with Statistics Canada reporting that return trips from the United States by Canadian residents via air have dropped nearly 20 percent in April compared to the previous year. Return trips from the U.S. by vehicle are down more than 35 percent from April 2024.

A recent Leger survey of Canadians found more than half said they no longer feel welcome or safe travelling to the United States. The survey, conducted for the Association of Canadian Studies, questioned 1,626 individuals with 54 percent saying they no longer feel welcome in the United States. Twenty-seven percent said they disagreed, and 19 percent said they did not know.

When broken down by age, 60 percent of those 55 years and older said they did not feel welcome, compared to 52 percent of those aged 35 to 54, and 48 percent of those 18 to 34 years old.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.