INSIDE

By Meg Olson

A list of agricultural rules for entering the United States that appeared at the local port of entry caused some confusion regarding NEXUS members dropping passengers off or picking them up.

Some inspectors interpreted “regulations prohibit the use of the NEXUS lane to transport or ‘drop off’ non-NEXUS cardholders” to mean if a NEXUS member dropped someone off and then used the lane, it could result in removal of NEXUS privileges.

That’s not the case, said Customs and Border Protection public information officer Mike Milne, who said he did not know what authority had issued the new “rules” list.

“There has been no change in the policy in NEXUS for drop-offs,” he said, “though we do discourage it for a number of reasons.”

The only rule in place, Milne said, was that once in the NEXUS lane the only people in the car must be NEXUS members, and the only personal property in the car must be theirs. “The instances recently where people have had NEXUS privileges removed because the person that was dropped off left their belongings in the car,” Milne explained.
Dropping off passengers just before the port while in the NEXUS lane was also out, Milne said. “Drop them off before you get in the lane,” he said.

Facilities don’t exist for safe pickup and CBP operations can be constrained if secondary inspection areas are blocked by NEXUS members waiting to pick up walk-through passengers. Milne suggests establishing a pick-up location outside of the border facility.

Additionally, according to local border inspectors, those NEXUS holders whose membership has elapsed and have not yet received notification of renewal have a grace period of one month from expiry date in which they can still use the NEXUS lane. After the grace period, they will have to use the regular lane.