AP
 
Washington, Feb 23: Children would be exempt from new rules that would require travellers to show passports when entering the US at land or sea borders, the Bush administration announced on Thursday.

The new passport requirements would take effect as soon as January 2008. In a change from earlier plans, children aged 15 or younger with parental consent would be allowed to cross the borders at land and sea entry points with certified copies of their birth certificates rather than passports.

Children aged 16 through 18 travelling with school, religious, cultural or athletic groups and under adult supervision would also be allowed to travel with only their birth certificates.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the easing of rules for children entering by land or sea was in part the result of talks between the department and Canadians and interested state officials. Canada and US border states have been concerned that the passport requirements would hurt legitimate travel and commerce.

When the new requirements for travellers crossing land and sea borders take effect, it will bring residents of Western Hemisphere nations under the same rules as travellers from the rest of the world.

The rules were mandated by Congress in 2004 as a response to the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and the recommendations by the Sept 11 commission that border security be tightened.