| Iroquois passport | |
The front cover of a contemporary Iroquois biometric passport.
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| Date first issued | 1923 |
| Issued by | Iroquois League |
| Type of document | Passport |
| Purpose | Identification |
| Eligibility requirements | Iroquois League |
The Iroquois passport is a form of identification and an “expression of sovereignty"[1] used by the nationals of the Iroquois League (Iroquois: Haudenosaunee).
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The validity of an Iroquois passport for various purposes has been questioned, and the issue is entangled with the larger issue of Iroquois sovereignty. In July 2010 the Bloc Québécois sovereigntist organization voiced its opposition to the validity of the passport, saying that a passport should only be issued by a country, not a nation.[2] The Isle of Man has issued public warnings rejecting the document as a valid form of either identification or nationality, and regards holders as U.S. or Canadian citizens[3] and the European Union does not recognise it as a valid travel document and has issued guidelines stating that visas cannot be affixed to the passport, barring holders from the Schengen area.[4][5] Both list the Iroquois passport as a "fantasy passport", a document issued by a minority, sect, population group or private organization,[5] which according to the Isle of Man have "no authority and to which no official recognition has been given".[3]
The governments in the United States,[6] the United Kingdom[7] and Canada[2] have refused to endorse the document as valid document for international travel. Additionally, the document does not appear on the list of acceptable identification to cross into Canada. [8] The Iroquois passport has, however, been successfully used for international travel,[9] like the novelty passport of the "Conch Republic" micronation.[10]
The passports do not currently meet the requirements put forth by the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which went into effect in 2008, although upgrades are in the works.[11]
The Iroquois government has issued passports since around at least 1923, when Haudenosaunee authorities issued a passport to Cayuga statesman Deskaheh to travel to the League of Nations headquarters in Geneva.[12] In 1977, an agreement was made between the Iroquois League and the United States Department of State, Canada, the United Kingdom and other nations,[13] regarding the acceptance of the document.
In 2005 Japan allowed a delegation travelling on the Iroquois passport to visit that country for the World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions.[14]
Despite official Canadian acceptance of the document for entry into Canada, in early 2010 a delegation from Kahnawake to an environmental conference in Bolivia was unable to return to Canada on the passport, stranding the group in El Salvador for several weeks before they were allowed, under escort, to transit via the United States.[15]
In July 2010 the United Kingdom did not accept the tribal passports of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team for travel to the UK for the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship,[7] initially as it was unclear if the United States government would allow the team back into the US.[6] The United States government offered to immediately issue United States passports to the team-members, and several days after this offer was rejected, issued waivers that would allow the team back into the US; the UK continued to refuse to issue visas.[16]
On June 18, 2011, yet another incident has occurred at the Cornwall, Ontario, port-of-entry into Canada where an Akwesasne Mohawk woman's Haudenosaunee passport was confiscated and a Certificate of Indian Status card had to be used to cross the border.[8]