A grant given to Native American tribes in Washington will allow them to develop ID cards to they can travel across the Canadian border without passports
The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington will use recently received federal grant money to develop a plastic ID card system for its members, according to the Wenatchee World.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a $896,000 grant to the Native American organization to help develop identification cards for security and travel purposes. The tribe’s grant is the fourth highest of the agency’s 24 recently-issued grants totaling $10 million.
The grant money comes as a result of the tribes’ protest last year against identification processes at the Canadian border. Before the Department of Homeland Security’s ruling to eliminate the need for passports to cross the Canadian border, members of the tribe were allowed to freely move in and out of the country to visit family and other tribe members in Canada. Colville Tribe members had grown frustrated after the legislation and held a protest urging U.S. authorities to accept the tribe’s plastic ID cards for identification. The program will help give tribal members access to Canada while developing an ID card that adheres to the agency’s identification requirements.
The Department of Homeland Security has been pushing for identification advancement in the country, as it met last month with New York Senator Charles Schumer to discuss implementing biometric ID technology at airports.
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