By Ben Johnston Story Ideas? Email ben@roseaustar.com
On Wednesday, April 10, representatives and community members from Roseau, Lancaster and Manitoba gathered in Washington D.C. for a meeting with Congressman Bennie Thompson, the Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, about their respective ports of entry along the Canadian border.
In attendance were Mayor Jeff Pelowski and Community Development Coordinator (CDC) Todd Peterson from Roseau, Vice President of Government Affairs for Polaris Ellen McCarthy, City Councilman Luke Nordin and business owner Randy Nordin from Lancaster, U.S. Representative Collin Peterson, the Canadian Member of Parliament for Provencher Ted Falk, Executive Director Randy Howe and Director Roger Kaplan of the Office of Field Operations for Customs and Border Protection.
The road to this D.C. meeting began in November 2017 when Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was considering reducing the hours at the port of entry in Roseau and Lancaster. It was only 7-10 days before CBP was set to implement the new hours that they decided to hold public meetings in Roseau and Lancaster. For Roseau this meant reducing the hours from 8 a.m.- midnight to 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
“All the leg work and everything coming into these decisions had already been done without the local communities knowledge or input,” Todd Peterson said. “We thought they were, again, public input meetings for us to give input on the decision. The things that were handed out said, ‘The hours will be implemented on this day.’”
The CBP did adjust to have summer hours after issues that arose through that meeting, but by in large the decision had been made. The changes took effect January 2018.
With Roseau being a main place of some Canadians’ employment, retail and services — including the hospital which has a contract with Manitoba for their residents to receive care in Roseau — city leaders felt the reduced hours had a significant impact on the community.
City officials contacted Congressman Collin Peterson, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Smith expressing their concerns — including what they perceived as unfair treatment. The Roseau port is the eighth busiest out of 25 in the Pembina district, with the top seven all being 24-hour ports.
Collin Peterson’s office then made a request to CBP to look at using some sort of technology to extend the hours back to midnight, and ideally to 24-hours, for private vehicles. CBP agreed to commission a feasibility study to look at that option. The study and report took nearly a year to put together, delaying further action until it was determined there was no other option.
Mayor Pelowski, Todd Peterson and, by phone, Congressman Collin Peterson met CBP for the results of that report.
“The long and short of this report was it’s not cost effective to do that,” Todd Peterson said, summarizing.
With no progress being made working directly with the CBP, Congressman Collin Peterson contacted Congressman Thompson to set up this D.C. meeting.
As Congressman Thompson chaired the meeting, the community representatives provided their concerns with regards to community impact and the process in which the changes were made.
Chairman Thompson reiterated those concerns as well as voiced his main concern of where the directive came from. As far as he was aware, CBP had never approached congress or the oversight committee to say they do not have the resources to man all the borders.
CBP argued that the busier ports do not have enough officers and these changes would allow them to move staff to busier ports during.
Thompson was concerned that CBP did not inform congress of the need for more resources. Thompson wanted to see the directive which said CBP needed to reduce hours at certain ports, and to see the process and guidelines on how that is done. He became upset when CBP could not provide that and instead was arbitrarily making these decisions without transparency or justification.
Thompson hoped CBP would reconsider their decision in light of the fact he doesn’t believe they followed a reasonable process for making these decisions and maybe they need to start over. A deadline of May 1 was set for CBP to get back to the Chairman on what their process would or should be.
“Basically they (CBP) are going to go back and look at the decisions they’ve made in terms of the hour reductions and determine whether that should or shouldn’t have happened,” said Todd Peterson.
CBP will then have to explain to the committee why they are making these decisions and what process they would use for the future.
“I came out more hopeful than I ever thought going there,” said Todd Peterson.
Last modified: 04/24/2019
