Border Crossings. As elected pubic officials voicing the concerns of the U.S. citizens of cities and counties along the Texas-Mexico border, we have invested.

Border Crossings

As elected pubic officials voicing the concerns of the U.S. citizens of cities and counties along the Texas-Mexico border, we have invested countless hours and funds from our pubic treasuries in order to bring forth this proposal. We take great pride in our communities’ efforts to improve our region's ability to serve our nation's interest. We have built bridges, invested in security, and provided civic projects to assist our country in its ability to conduct international business and trade with other countries around the world.  We are dedicated, individually and collectively, to the protection of our country's national security and its economic strength and growth.

The serious and rising delays of pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the Texas-Mexico border ports of entry are harming the local, state, and national economies. Current U.S. policies and procedures are to blame and we must act now to relieve the delays as we move into another demanding year of economic stress and hardship.

It has been reported that anywhere between five and forty percent of local economic retail activity in the Texas border counties depends on cross-border traffic. This activity is not solely limited to border counties; foreign visitors entering the United States from border ports of entry often account for substantial sales revenue in San Antonio, New Braunfels, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth.  Since 80 percent of all border trade - mostly in the form of freight related to manufacturing and logistics activities - moves through Texas into other states, border delays is also injuring the national economy from Tacoma to Bangor to Detroit.

The business and traffic delays are directly a result of our federal government’s policies and programs.  Prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, border wait times were increasing as a result of greater enforcement and anti-terrorism tactics and policies.  Since September 11, wait times initially fell along with economic activity and then grew at an accelerated pace as more demands of repeated inspections and non-productive policies were implemented.  Now, over the past year, the Department of Homeland Security has implemented policies that appear to cause more interference in business trade than to capture those who can cause harm to our country. The border delays have risen exponentially and are reducing America's economic growth. As the retail, logistics and manufacturing sectors move into the Christmas sales season, the growth in border delays threaten an untenable impact that U.S. Congress and the Administration have a responsibility to address before it becomes a catastrophic to U.S. citizens and our international business and trade.

There are long-term solutions that the Texas Border Coalition has recommended and continues to advocate dealing with technology, infrastructure, and personnel at our ports of entry.  At this moment in time, however, we are most concerned about the economic survival over the next several months of our communities and the communities across Texas and the nation that we support. We strongly believe that the following proposals of interim changes are consistent with the current security posture of our nation.  We reject the notion that economic and national security exists in opposition to each other.  Based on our decades of knowledge and experience, we know that effective and well-communicated policies will provide for an increase of economic growth and security.

First and foremost, we must increase the number of land and inspection sites at each port of entry.  To do so, we need inspection personnel deployed to the front lines.  We recommend an immediate cancellation of all temporary duty assignments (TDY) to headquarters that are in a permanent rotating status. These TDY's draw many front-line personnel to Washington, creating shortages of personnel needed to protect our border and its trade functions in a safe and expeditious manner.

We also recommend permanent reassignment of GS 11's from deskwork that contributes little to our national security to front line work on our ports of entry. In this context, we also recommend a moratorium on upper-line promotions to GS 13, 14, 15, in order to stop the shortage of employees. This will stop the shortfall of employees to the front-line ranks, due to service retirements, medical retirements and job transfers to other agencies. Along with ending TDY's, these actions will also save overtime funds wasted by the current mismatch of management to line personnel and the additional expenditure of funds for daily per diem, travel, hotel and meals which cause an enormous dent in our national enforcement budget.

Also, inaccurate systems and records must be resolved to prevent repeated and reoccurring inspections. For example, inaccurate information pertaining to, but not limited to: lost immigration cards, overstays, stolen vehicles, individual record hits with non-extraditable status. Individuals who have a record that has not been corrected (despite its inaccuracies) are re-inspected everyday, plus every time they cross in one day. This causes border traffic to stop making already short inspection staff to inspect, detain and input repeated findings into the agency's record system.  These wasteful and repeated activities are duplicated over and over again, day after day, and add little to our homeland security interest.

We recommend increasing inspection efficiency and accuracy by having current enforcement teams and personnel check persons and vehicles prior to arriving to the primary inspection area. This expedites the inspection time by the primary officer. The primary officer would only have to screen his name upon arrival.

This recommendation can be easily accomplished with the current mobile and wireless communications equipment already stored and used at our ports of entry. To keep the front-line personnel where they are needed most - on the front line - we also recommend that management fence, identify and track by code all additional work and employees who work in areas of pubic traffic inspections.

To maintain the focus of front-line personnel on the task of protecting the nation from terror and criminal elements, we suggest that COMPEX examinations should be stopped, on account of the time waste and ineffectiveness to examinations. The actionable findings created by COMPEX examination are less than one percent of the overall inspections.  This system sends random vehicles into secondary inspection without cause.  For every 1,000 vehicles delayed without cause, one violation may occur -- if any.  Usually the traveler gets a verbal warning, often the same verbal warning the primary officer already delivered. This system causes unnecessary delays, causing unnecessary inspections, and manpower shortages for traffic facilitation.

Again, we believe the goals of assuring security and fostering trade are not mutually exclusive.  Our nation's policies can and should be implemented to bolster both national security and economic trade without placing barriers detrimental to the flow of legitimate travelers and business arriving and departing between United Sates and Mexico.

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5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Brownsville Border Crossings 1999 - 2006

Source: US Dept. of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Border Crossing /Entry Data; based on data from US Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, OMR Database

05,000,000

10,000,00015,000,00020,000,00025,000,00030,000,00035,000,00040,000,00045,000,00050,000,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

0

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

30,000,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

11,500,000

12,000,000

12,500,000

13,000,000

13,500,000

14,000,000

14,500,000

15,000,000

15,500,000

16,000,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

0

10,000,000

20,000,000

30,000,000

40,000,000

50,000,000

60,000,000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006