OTTAWA (AP) – The Bush administration will announce Thursday that children under 17 will be excused from a controversial law forcing visitors to show a passport at U.S. land borders by 2009.

Michael Chertoff, the U.S. secretary of homeland security, will make the announcement during a stop in Detroit en route to Ottawa, U.S. State Department sources told The Canadian Press.

The move to exempt children from the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative would simplify cross-border travel for families, sports teams, youth groups, and school field trips.

“For (age) 16 and under the rules will not change,” one U.S. State Department official said Wednesday. “You obviously need control. But you don’t need to worry so much about Canadian kids.”

He cast the move as a goodwill gesture that will alleviate fears in U.S. border states, and in Canada, that the new passport requirements could disrupt the economy.

Two State Department sources said other announcements – including a possible exemption for seniors – could follow.

Only 40 per cent of Canadians and 27 per cent of Americans have passports. Those statistics that have prompted scare scenarios about the potential impact on tourism and on the flow of goods.

The premiers of Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick announced Wednesday they would travel to Washington next week to express their concerns with the initiative. “You (also) have a certain number of border state governors who want to see some accommodation,” said the State Department official.

“You could call this a gesture, you could say it addresses what people have identified as specific needs.”

The new exemption will not apply at airports, where children will still require passports. The passport law is already in effect for air travel, and will apply at land border crossings by June 2009.

The implementation date came when Congress passed a 17-month extension from the initial target date of Jan. 1, 2008.

Chertoff has expressed a willingness to soften the rules in certain cases.

Last month he said such an exemption would be granted to Canadian snowbirds who entered the U.S. this winter, before the passport requirement for air travellers took effect Jan. 23.