Beyond the Border Action Plan Sees Significant Progress Despite Difficult Budgets, CBP Says
CBP’s acting commissioner Thomas Winkowski said the agency has made significant progress with Beyond the Border Action Plan initiatives towards U.S.-Canada cooperation despite budget restraints, during a Sept. 13 U.S.-Canada Border conference. Of the 32 initiatives, Winkowski said that CBP is involved in 15 and has interest in five others that will add "momentum to CBP’s modernization efforts such as early analysis of flows of goods and travelers, effective risk management, and streamlining trade processing.”
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Winkowski said that the plan's initiatives were created to support four key areas of cooperation between the U.S. and Canada, including “addressing threats early, trade facilitation, economic growth and jobs, integrated cross-border law enforcement, critical infrastructure and cybersecurity.” The agency has already successfully created a “biographic entry/exit system” on the U.S.-Canada land border to “effectively enforce immigration laws,” and jointly developed security screening data set to mitigate security risks. For the purposes of cross-border law enforcement, Winkowski said CBP was building on the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams and Border Enforcement Security Task Forces “to build the next generation of integrated cross border law enforcement operations.”
For upcoming years, CBP has partnered with the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority to “renovate and expand the commercial warehouse facilities at the Peace Bridge in New York" by 2016 at a significantly reduced cost to the government," Winkowski said. Due to a “difficult budget,” which Winkowski said has become the “new normal for governments and corporations around the world,” CBP has aimed to streamline their processes and make better use of resources. In order to combat such budgetary issues, CBP will continue to evaluate “implementing co-located operations at select existing facilities and constructing new shared facilities” along the U.S.-Canada border, Winkowski said.
Winkowski said that “even with sequestration and difficult budgets, CBP remains committed to good service at the border.” “That was uppermost in my mind when we were making tough budget decisions—and determining what could—and could not—be cut,” he said. “I insisted that our trusted trader programs were not to be touched and our trusted trader lines were not to be reduced.”
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