U.S., Mexico to open joint inspection stations
From The San Diego Union Tribune
By Sandra Dibble
TIJUANA - "U.S. and Mexican authorities are preparing for the opening of a customs inspections station in Tijuana that will allow U.S. officers for
the first time to screen commercial shipments on Mexican soil before they reach the border.
The facility, built by the Mexican federal government, would have officers from both countries operating out of the same compound near the Otay Mesa
border crossing. The aim of the pilot program is to speed up the processing of certain produce items - and thus improve the bottom line for
businesses.
Visitors who have toured the installation - located by the border fence - said it includes a laboratory, rooms for cold storage and state-of-the-art
inspection equipment. They have been told that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers would enter and exit directly from the United States
through a secured road. They also said the site is ready to open once Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's new president, and the Obama administration give
the final go-ahead.
U.S. federal authorities have refrained from public comment about the project, saying protocol dictates that they make a joint announcement with their
Mexican counterparts. Mexican authorities could not be reached this week.
A primary goal of the facility is to reduce border wait times for commercial trucks entering from Mexico through Otay Mesa, where the inspection
process can take hours. After Laredo and El Paso, Texas, Otay Mesa is the third-busiest commercial port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border. From
January through October of last year, more than $40 billion in goods came across at Otay, according to U.S. census data analyzed by WorldCity in
Florida, a company that tracks import-export trends.
The goal is "promoting the efficient clearance of the increasingly high volume of trade between the United States and Mexico," according to a joint
statement from Mexico's Tax Administration Service and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The planned screening station would be launched as a 180-day, voluntary program limited to inspections of northbound perishable goods that are
especially time-sensitive. These include strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce approved under Customs and Border Protection's National
Agriculture Release Program, which seeks to expedite the inspection of high-volume, low-risk commodities.
"It's a great opportunity to expand ports of entry without being landlocked to the particular area where the border is," said Alejandra Mier y Terán,
executive director of the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce.
Some trade groups hope the project eventually will be expanded to include nonperishable products such as medical devices and consumer electronics.
"Pre-clearance can greatly reduce both wait times for cargo crossing as well as help reduce air pollution and fuel consumption of trucks idling at the
border," said James Clark, director of the San Diego-Tijuana Smart Border Coalition.
The Otay Mesa program is one three pre-clearance pilot facilities set to open along the U.S.-Mexico border. The second would be located in Texas at
Laredo International Airport, where Mexican customs officers would have authority to inspect Mexico-bound air shipments of components used in
automotive and aeronautics manufacturing. The plan is to open it at the same time as the Otay Mesa station.
"All eyes are on Otay Mesa and Laredo, to get this thing kick-started and going," said Nelson Balido, president of the San Antonio-based Border Trade
Alliance. "In my opinion, it's the customs inspection station of the future."
The third proposed pre-clearance facility would have U.S. customs officers working west of Ciudad Juárez at the massive, Taiwanese-owned Foxconn
maquiladora campus near the port of entry at Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
The agreements have involved complex negotiations between Mexico and the United States, including sign-offs from many agencies on both sides and input
from the union that represents Customs and Border Protection workers. The two governments have addressed sensitive security questions, such as whether
U.S. and Mexican officers would carry weapons when working on foreign soil.
Rudy Camacho, a former customs director in San Diego, said commercial pre-clearance facilities on the U.S.-Mexico have been discussed for years, "but
the will wasn't there."
The new Otay Mesa facility, located on the grounds of the former Pioneer plant, "is a class operation," said Camacho, who now runs a consulting firm
in San Diego. The key to getting enough shippers to join the project is to significantly reduce wait times, he added. "If you're not cutting down that
time, you're not giving them added value."
Mexico's previous president, Felipe Calderón, applauded the Otay Mesa plan during a visit to Tijuana in October. "This will be a watershed that will
facilitate and speed up commerce and binational competitivity," he said.
But the project has its skeptics, including Alfonso Esquér, head the Tijuana branch of Canacar, Mexico's trucking chamber. The inspection center's
early-morning operating hours - 7 to 11 a.m. - would prevent many exporters from participating, he said.
Among those expecting to benefit is a Watsonville-based company, Driscoll's, which imports Mexican berries to the United States.
The facility "will have the best equipment possible," said Arazeli Penilla, a San Diego-based customs compliance specialist for the company. That
includes 3D microscopes that would be linked to computers, allowing off-site entomologists to quickly identify insects in a produce shipment.
If a shipment is selected for inspection by Mexican customs officers, then U.S. inspectors could conduct their own review at the same time.
"You don't have to unload the shipment twice," Penilla said. "It's a huge step."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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