Modernizing Border Processes a Work in Progress, Experts Say
The title of the panel discussion was "21st Century Management at our Ports of Entry," but panelists acknowledged that there are many ways the border operates that aren't modern at all.
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There is limited capacity at the Laredo, Texas, crossing, and the prospect of a lot of growth, said Patrick Ottensmeyer, CEO of Kansas City Southern. "To gain capacity, you have to improve the processes," he said, because building a second bridge over the river for trains, for example, is too expensive.
If U.S. politicians would agree to allow Mexican crews to continue to rail yards 10 miles from the border, and vice versa, it would save a 20-minute crew change in the middle of the bridge, where the train crew literally climbs out and walks back to their home country. "Our modeling shows we could almost double the capacity of that bridge," Ottensmeyer said.
Allen Gina, former assistant commissioner for international trade at CBP, said that while people talk about the dream of coordinated border management between the U.S. and its neighbors, in reality, the U.S. doesn't even coordinate fully among its 47 agencies that have some level of responsibility for goods crossing the border.
Still, panelists talked about advances in coordination. Jorge Alvarez Tovar, representative of Mexico's Treasury and Tax Administration Service in Washington, said the unified cargo processing pilot is maturing and in the next few months, the two countries will expand it to maritime shipments. "In some ports of entry, [UCP] is 100 percent of shipments," he said. Where UCP is being applied, wait times have dropped from three hours to 45 minutes, and even at times, 15 minutes, he said.
At a port where there is not unified cargo processing, a northbound truckload is examined by phytosanitary experts, then Mexican customs, then CBP, then FDA, then DOT, he said. "It's just taking too long."
Gina, who now is a consultant, told the moderator that moving to the private sector has given him more awareness of the costs of delays. He said when he was in the government, "NCBFAA was constantly reminding me what it's like to meet payroll," and how when margins are 2 percent, every efficiency matters.
Alvarez Tovar said the Customs Facilitation chapter of the new NAFTA is one of the biggest advances in the text.
Both Alvarez Tovar and Gina said they hear from companies that want to know if they were to participate in trusted trader programs, will they get the benefit of faster processing. Gina said you could have excellent supply chain integrity, and can assure the government no narcotics are hitching a ride on your trucks, but if you declare your HTS codes incorrectly, falsify the country of origin, or don't do valuation correctly, you're still going to get some shipments stopped and checked. Gina said companies that want the most efficiency should be willing to open their books to CBP.
"In order for us to get better risk management, we need more information," Alvarez Tovar agreed.