But it shouldn’t be a problem in Palm Beach County.<\/P><\/p>\n
Authorities at international airports throughout the nation are now scanning fingerprints and taking photos of most foreigners arriving in this country. Residents of 27 countries \uff96 mostly European nations — are exempt from this extra level of scrutiny.<\/P><\/p>\n
The only non-domestic flights arriving at Palm Beach International Airport are from Canada and the Bahamas, said Lisa De La Rionda, spokeswoman for PBIA.<\/P><\/p>\n
And those passengers are processed separate from those arriving from other parts of the United States.<\/P><\/p>\n
Passengers coming into PBIA on chartered or private flights also remain out of the domestic arrival line.<\/P><\/p>\n
The fingerprint and photo program – called US-VISIT \uff96 went into effect Monday at 115 airports and 14 seaports around the country.<\/P><\/p>\n
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the process adds only 15 seconds to travel time and is very private. <\/P><\/p>\n
De La Rionda agreed, saying the extra measure of security “shouldn’t add to delays.
\nCoincidentally, neither Canada nor the Bahamas is on the exemption list.<\/P><\/p>\n
She said the Border Department and Customs Service has installed the equipment at PBIA needed to do the photography and fingerprinting.<\/P><\/p>\n
The same type of scrutinizing apparatus will be used to check out passengers at the Port of Palm Beach, she said.<\/P><\/p>\n
Citizens from 27 countries can travel to the United States without a visa and are exempt from being fingerprinted and photographed at U.S. airports and seaports under the new anti-terrorism program. <\/P><\/p>\n
They can enter the United States with passports for business or pleasure for up to 90 days.
\nTo travel for other purposes or to stay longer, they must have a visa and would be subject to the checks for other arriving foreigners under the new US-VISIT program.<\/P><\/p>\n
By October, visitors from the exempt countries must have a machine-readable
\npassport to enter the United States. If not, they will be required to have a
\nvisa and will be subject to US-VISIT checks.<\/P><\/p>\n
The exempt countries are: Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, San Marino, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
\nSwitzerland, United Kingdom, Portugal and Singapore.<\/P><\/p>\n
By Dale M. King, The Boca-Raton News<\/B>
\nThe Associated Press contributed to this story.<\/i><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another regulation has been heaped on the security people trying to keep the nation’s airports safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}