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INSIDE
Congressman
gets earful and a half
from pint-size school bus commuters
By Meg
Olson
When the
Point Roberts students boarded the school bus before dawn Thursday,
January 10, they found some seats already taken. U.S. Representative
Rick Larsen, accompanied by school superintendent Gordon Dolman,
were along for the ride.
“You just have to get in a mindset, as a family, that this
is what you do every day,” said U.S. Representative Rick
Larsen after spending more than two hours on the Point Roberts
school bus, starting at the Blaine bus barn at 6:30 a.m. “The
kids on the bus have been quite creative in learning to use the
time, whether it’s reading, sharing toys or talking.”
While students on the bus now bypass border lines, that wasn’t
the case in the days following September 11 and Larsen said keeping
the school bus trip as short as possible for Point Roberts students
needed to be a priority.
Larsen got off the bus at 8:45 a.m. and reported to the Peace
Arch port of entry for duty as a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
inspector. “I wanted to experience first-hand what it’s
like to be an INS inspector after September 11,” he said.
“To have to ask the questions, search the car and make a
decision in 90 seconds is difficult enough. I don’t know
how they did it before September 11 in eight seconds.”
After a brief training Larsen donned a bulletproof vest and INS
jacket and headed out to the inspection booths. Like other INS
inspectors, Larsen worked a half hour in the inspection lanes
followed by a half hour inside. Before lunch time he had covered
quite a few bases, checking proof of citizenship, inspecting trunks
and tackling more complicated immigration questions at the counter
inside.
When it was all over, Larsen said he had a better understanding
of the minute-mystery inspectors face in each vehicle. “You’re
looking for something that’s not consistent,” he said.
“Checking what they tell you with what’s in the vehicle.”
Larsen also learned the wide scope of an inspector’s powers
at the border to make that rapid-fire determination of whether
a person should enter the country. “You can pretty much do
whatever you want to do to whomever. You just have to temper that
with some common sense,” said INS district assistant director
for inspections Ron Hays.
Finally, Larsen got a broader picture of an inspector’s day,
from 12-hour days, six hours in a both and 300 cars, to the brighter
moments at America’s gateway. “This can be a very satisfying
job because you’re really doing something useful,” he
said, “even if it’s just saying hello.”
During Larsen’s shift at the Peace Arch, travelers waited
no more than a 20 minutes, but Larsen said a normal, pre September
11 volume would swamp the border at existing staffing levels.
“We’re asking for INS headquarters to send 70 more customs
and 70 INS inspectors,” he said. “We knock on that door
every day and we’ll keep making noise.”
The days of the eight-second inspection are over, according to
Larsen, and the high level of scrutiny inspectors are now turning
on each vehicle is needed. “For security’s sake we need
to have that kind of protection.”
However, Larsen doesn’t think more security needs to mean
less mobility. “It’s a matter of full staffing in every
booth, getting the technology in place so NEXUS can pre-clear
frequent travelers, more coordination between Canadian and U.S.
agencies. “If we just keep things the way they are we’re
going to continue to have problems.”
Once staffing levels are up at the border, Larsen said he thinks
cross-border traffic and the business it brings will be back.
“It’s an ‘if you build it, they will come’
scenario,” he said. “Show people we’re making the
commitment, that it won’t be an hour wait, and those numbers
will come back up.”.
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