Passport trumps them all

Question: My wife, a recently naturalized citizen, has a U.S. passport with her new Americanized first, middle and last names. Will the Transportation Security Administration require her to show a California driver’s license to travel domestically, to Mexico or internationally? Are two consistent forms of ID required?

Douglas Wicks

Westchester

Answer: Wicks — and his better half — can relax, to the extent anyone can relax when traveling these days.

The short answer is that she needs only her passport to get on a flight, but she needs to be consistent.

There are two sets of regulations that seem to be muddled here; let’s sort them out.

The first is the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or as I like to call it, the Just Give Up and Get a Passport Already.

In the olden days before Sept. 11, you could get into and out of many places in the Western Hemisphere with little more than a driver’s license and/or a birth certificate and a perky smile. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, signed as that year was ending, stipulated that travelers would need a passport or other “secure” document to get back into the U.S. In the first phase of the initiative, you needed a passport/secure document only for air travel in the Western Hemisphere, but as of June 2009, you need the documentation for all travel, including land and sea.

The passport is one acceptable form of identification but not the only one. There are passport cards, a.k.a. Passport Lite, which are less expensive than a passport ($100 versus $45 for a first-time applicant) but are limited to Canada, Mexico and some other places in the Caribbean and Bermuda. You can’t, for example, go to Europe with a passport card. Then there is the enhanced driver’s license (Washington State has this) that allows land and sea entry from, say, Canada. But, again, if your travels will take you farther afield, you need the passport.

Now layer in the TSA’s Secure Flight program. This newish program (it is largely implemented on domestic flights and should be completed on international flights by year’s end) requires matching names on your boarding pass and on your identification. (You also will be asked your gender and your date of birth.) Although many fliers use a driver’s license for identification, a passport can be used.

Getting through TSA security requires only one form of identification. Thus, Wicks’ wife should be fine if she uses her passport and makes sure that the name on her boarding pass is the same as the name on her passport.

Quickly, now, how is your name listed on your driver’s license? Your passport? Full first and full middle names? Initials? Married name or maiden name or previously married name? Hyphenated? Don’t have a clue? Don’t guess. “We would encourage you, as you are booking your ticket, to pull out your government ID” and look, said Suzanne Treviño, a TSA representative.

So leave your porn star name at home, Fifi. There’s enough bad drama when you travel.

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