INSIDE

More questions about now than later

By Meg Olson

It’s been a roller-coaster month for Point Roberts border users as policy ups and downs, fluctuating staff and NEXUS construction resulted in lines at times longer than they were in late September.

“I see a lot of people concerned here, a little testy,” said Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) public information officer at a June 8 meeting on the new NEXUS commuter lane but ended up being more about the sudden jump in border wait times.

“Why is it in the last week the lines coming into Point Roberts have gone through the roof and attitudes have gone through the floor,” said a local resident. “I had worse waits last week than September 12.”

Hays said several factors had come together that reduced manpower to the port, leading to single lane openings that pushed the line down the hill during busy periods: an overtime cap which has since been lifted, NEXUS lane construction and a shake-up of management at the port.

Port director James Hutchins was moved to the Peace Arch May 30 while INS supervisor Larry Nichols came to Point Roberts for a review of how inspectors are doing their jobs. “There are requirements that have not been done with the frequency our commissioner demands and I think the American public wants,” Hays said. Inspectors are required under national inspection policies to enter the license number of every car to check against the INS database and check the identification of every adult in the car, Hays said, and those things were being done less and less often on the Point. For example, in October 2001 14 percent of license numbers were not being entered, which Hays said was an acceptable margin, but that rose to 35 percent in February and was at 33 percent in May.

Hays said he could not guarantee two lanes would be open during the day, or that wait times would not go up as volume increased. “We’ll open more than one lane when the wait times merit it and we have the staff,” he said. He later said that four inspectors needed to be on duty for two lanes to be open. The port now has 12 positions authorized but one person is being promoted away and some are gone for training.

“I can’t guarantee there will be no waits,” Hays said. “Short of Canada taking Point Roberts I don’t know how that can be done.” Returning Point Roberts to Canada seems to have been a theme in recent weeks.

Congressman Rick Larsen’s office received a suggestion from a constituent that the U.S. lease Point Roberts to Canada for a dollar and an All Point Bulletin was asked by a Canada Customs inspector if they were aware the Point was being turned over to Canada in 2005. Canada Customs representatives said they had no such information.

“What is the rationale for treating Point Roberts like the rest of the country,” asked an audience member. “Those guys see us every day and they know us.”

Hays said they could not change the rules without a directive from Washington D.C. but said there could be some creative solutions the community could work on, and later asked Chamber of Commerce president Terrie LaPorte to put together a group to meet several times and work on such solutions.

That meeting, held June 24, was by invitation only and brought together a dozen business owners and chamber directors and three other community members. Representatives from the taxpayers’ and the voters’ associations were not included. “We had already come up with 14 people who were representative of the community,” LaPorte said. “It was a great working group.” One business owner Arthur Wilkowski declined to attend the meeting citing the exclusive makeup of the group. Presidents of both the excluded associations have both sent letters to Hays protesting their
exclusion..

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