23 Aug 2004

Former US Pacific territories win passport reprieve

12:46 pm on 23 August 2004

Citizens from United States-affiliated islands in the Pacific will be exempt from a new U.S. Homeland Security passport directive that comes into effect in October.

From that month all travellers will have to have machine readable passports.

However citizens of the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, which all have Compacts of Free Association with the United States, will be exempt from the new rules.