MADAWASKA (AP) – Residents along the Maine-Canada border are preparing for new rules that go into effect this week affecting their travel back and forth across the border.

Beginning Thursday, new regulations will require that adults entering the U.S. from Canada by land prove their citizenship through documents such as a passport.

That has people in this mill town of about 4,400 on the northern tip of Maine and in the neighboring Canadian town of Edmundston getting their papers in order.

Lorraine Nadeau, 74, applied for a passport for the first time last year in anticipation of the new rules. She crosses the border regularly to visit her French-Canadian relatives in New Brunswick.

Although there is confusion about the timeline for the new rules, Nadeau said she and many of her friends at the Madawaska senior center went ahead and ordered passports, while others in town have put it off.

“I thought they said we all needed a passport by this year,” Nadeau said. “My husband said I should just go get it.”

Federal officials say they’ll be flexible in implementing the new identification standards for entering the country. Under the current standards, U.S. and Canadian citizens can enter the country by land by simply showing an ID and telling the border agent their nationality.

But starting Thursday, they’ll have to display a passport or similar document, or a combination of two other documents, such as a driver’s license and birth certificate. People 18 and younger need only show proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate.

The new rules will be inescapable along the Maine border in towns such as Madawaska, Van Buren, Houlton and Calais, where people routinely cross to visit friends and relatives, go to work, or to shop or go out to dinner.

Michelle Dube lives in Edmundston, which has about 16,000 people, and works in Madawaska at the Fraser Papers mill. She now carries in her car a certificate of citizenship, which will be accepted along with her driver’s license, to come into Maine.

“I think this is kind of a pain in the butt,” said Dube, 26. “But it’s their job. I understand.”

Cliff Cyr, a cabinet maker from Madawaska, said the new rules are maddening because people have crossed the border for so many years that they’re on a first-name basis with border guards. He thinks border officers should be allowed to use their discretion on whose ID to check.

Cyr, 49, is friendly with most of the officers and went to school with many of them. Why, he asks, do they need to question him each time he passes by their booth?

“These people in Washington who came up with this have no clue,” said Cyr, who spent $97 last year for a passport. “They need to live up here and see what it’s like.”

Jackie Querze of Madawaska has had a passport since going on vacation to France several years ago. She doesn’t see anything wrong with the government demanding proof of citizenship when entering the country.

“If you go in any other country, you need a passport,” said Querze. “We consider Canada a part of our country, but we have to accept that it’s not.”

Business owners are concerned that the new rules will lead to longer waits at the border and fewer customers coming in from Canada. And there are concerns that the added layers of security will throw up walls between the communities.

“I think it will change the way we communicate,” said Cheryl Daigle, who works at the Fraser Papers mill. “We’ll see less people crossing here, and less people crossing there.”

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-01-27-08 1200EST

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