US deficit could mean long border waits
Posted February 22, 2013 7:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WASHINGTON STATE (NEWS1130) – You could soon be waiting even longer to cross the border, and it’s all because of looming spending cuts by the American government.
Congress needs to reach an agreement by next week to tackle its country’s deficit or we will see the impacts.
That would include losing man power at the border crossings; guards would be forced to take up to 14 unpaid days off. In addition to that, an agency-wide hiring freeze would be brought in and there would be a reduction in training and overtime for guards.
Ken Oplinger with the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce is worried this will sharply increase wait times at the border coming back into Canada.
“I seriously doubt in the next week we’ll be able to have any impact on it. Although we’ll certainly reach out and raise the issue but I think overtime that will be the case and if there’s no change made to it, we’ll certainly make this a priority to lobby in DC,” he says.
Oplinger doesn’t have any hard numbers but says this will have a big impact on the Bellingham economy. “Local governments here estimate that they get somewhere in the neighbourhood of seven to eight million dollars just off Canadian retail sales.”
The total cuts to Customs and Border Protection could be up to $754 million from March 1 through the September 30 end of the current fiscal year.
