The days of a verbal declaration of U.S. citizenship or a photo ID sufficing at our borders to the north and south are over. And well they should be. More than three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, we’re finally requiring passports for Americans returning from Mexico or Canada.

There should be little, if any, grumbling over the government’s plan. Most of us should be only too happy to oblige. Actually, the news may come as a surprise to some who assumed passports – or at least some form of picture identification – were required all along. In some cases photo ID was required, but the U.S. and neighboring countries need a clearly defined system that is consistently applied to all, and that’s what the tightening of passport requirements will accomplish.

Frequent low-risk travelers and commercial workers may qualify for cards to help them move through lines much faster than the rest of us. However, regular lines may move a little more rapidly on the U.S. side when border inspectors no longer have to sort through various travel documents to determine legitimacy.

For years, our elected officials have been championing the cause of additional border patrol agents for our U.S.-Canadian border. Many of the new agents hired have been assigned to the southern border, but if recent news stories about the Minuteman Project are any indication, apparently that wasn’t enough. The project volunteers have decided to help patrol the vulnerable 370-mile Arizona border for illegal immigration crossings and possible terrorists this month – the peak month for immigrants crossing the southern border. Homeland Security Department Officials said the southern border is likely to be the point of entry for al-Qaida terrorists and that illegal entry is more advantageous to them.

Let’s hope officials don’t forget about the 1999 foiled terrorist plot in our own northern backyard that came to light only after a very alert U.S. Customs agent did a little digging and stopped convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam from entering the U.S. with falsified documents. Ressam had explosives with him intended for an attack on Los Angeles International Airport. He was caught and stopped in Port Angeles.

This and other near misses – not to mention the horrors of Sept. 11. – should be enough to convince people who plan to travel to Canada, Mexico, Panama and Bermuda to get their passports or get them updated.

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently, the new rules are in large part because of Sept. 11, but given prior threats, “these were borders that I think no one could call secure.”

Any reasonable steps we can take to turn that around are welcome.