President Biden has declared the pandemic over, but some of the country’s northern border crossings into Canada have been slow to get the word.
Many of the country’s ports of entry along the northern boundary are still running on pandemic-shortened schedules. Now a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Idaho Republican Sen. James E. Risch, say it’s time to get things back to their full pre-COVID operating hours.
Canada has done so, but Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection agency has resisted.
That creates bizarre mismatches like the crossing between Raymond, Montana, and Regway, Saskatchewan, where people can go from the U.S. to Canada 24 hours a day, but are out of luck if they want to enter the U.S. between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Meanwhile some North Dakota crossings shut down at 5 p.m., while their Canadian counterparts are open until 10 p.m.
“The mismatched and uncoordinated hours are causing confusion and frustration across the northern border,” Mr. Risch and fellow lawmakers wrote in a letter to CBP asking for changes.
DOCUMENT: Letter from members of Congress requesting border protection expand operational hours
CBP did fully open two Vermont border crossings to match their Canadian counterparts, and the lawmakers said they can “see no reasonable justification for continuing to limit the ports of entry hours in other northern border states.”
The closures are more than an academic question for the border communities’ citizens, who say they are losing business and facing other hurdles to their lives with the shortened hours.
Border officials have been pushing for more than a year to fully reopen the ports of entry. They grew optimistic when Canada announced it would resume regular hours of operation along its border, and hoped Mr. Biden’s move to end the pandemic emergency in the U.S. as of May 11 would signal a reopening here.
But the closures persisted, along with some other pandemic-era policies.
Homeland Security is still letting foreign students with student visas study remotely through the end of this summer, though the department says students must return to in-person classes for the 2023-24 school year.
And while Health and Human Services officially erased its vaccine mandate for health care workers in a regulatory filing this week, it will continue to look at vaccine rates in evaluating health facilities.
The CBP border closures appear to have more staying power.
Despite labeling the changes temporary in 2020, the agency now says the traffic levels they’re seeing don’t justify a full reopening.
“For several years, CBP has documented a reduction in privately-owned vehicle and pedestrian traffic at some ports of entry along our northern border,” the agency said in a statement to The Washington Times.
“As part of CBP’s obligation to use its resources responsibly and most efficiently, continual evaluations of workload, staffing, operating costs, and traffic volumes are performed to align operating hours that reflect traffic patterns and place employees where they can be most useful,” CBP said.
The GOP lawmakers suggested there’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation about causes and effects.
“We believe when the border hours are extended to, at a minimum, match adjacent CBSA ports, vehicular and pedestrian traffic will increase to match, if not exceed, prepandemic levels,” they wrote.
In March, CBP announced a 120-day test at three North Dakota ports and one Idaho port, adding two more hours of operations at each location. The agency said it would study the results to see what steps to take.
Some of the crossings in question have long been targets for CBP.
In 2015 it tried to cut hours at the Raymond Port of Entry but reversed itself after pressure from the Montana congressional delegation.
Locals on the U.S. side have complained that the shorter hours mean less business from Canadians.
One woman from Noonan, North Dakota, told The Associated Press that she saw noticeably fewer Canadian customers at the bars and cafes and even at the post office. She said postal rates and drink prices were lower in the U.S., which drew Canadian customers.
The calls for expanded hours come as CBP is being taxed on the immigration front as well.
Officers at ports of entry used to encounter roughly 3,000 unauthorized migrants a month before the pandemic. Those numbers dipped at the start of the pandemic, but over the past year they have surged to 14,000 a month.
The GOP lawmakers, in their letter, said they would support more resources for CBP to handle its increased duties in order to get ports of entry open again.
Joining Mr. Risch on the letter Wednesday were Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, Republican Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Steve Daines of Montana, John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, both of North Dakota, and Republican Reps. Russ Fulcher of Idaho, Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, and Ryan Zinke and Matt Rosendale, both of Montana.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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