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INSIDE THIS WEEK
Times THE BOUNDARY CREEK
See Page 5
Thursday, March 14, 2013
VOL. 31 Number 11
See Page 16
U.S. cuts hit border patrol
Karaoke
PAT KELLY
Boundary Creek Times Reporter
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Action on the courts 8
Teams from elementary schools across the district converged on BCSS on Feb. 28 for their annual basketball play day. The gymnasium at BCSS offers two courts that were kept busy by the 13 teams that came to play. Action started at noon and the last games wrapped up at five.
PHOTO: PAT KELLY
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The United States – Canada’s largest trading partner – has been forced to take more than $85 billion out of its economy this year. Radical spending cuts have begun because Congress failed last month to come to an agreement on how to address the federal budget deficit. The fiscal policy procedure known as sequestration, mandated under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, began March 1, 2013. As drastic as this sounds, it is only the beginning. Sequestration embodies a series of automatic government spending cuts, totaling about $1 trillion over the next decade. It remains to be seen how that will be felt locally. The cuts are to be made across the entire government, but what it all means for local border crossings is unclear. More than half a billion dollars in budget cuts have been imposed on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Only a year ago there was concern raised about the fate of 11 small ports across the country, including the Midway port. CBC reported in December 2011 that a leaked presentation authored by the Small Ports Working Group listed the 11 ports as under consideration for closure. When questioned at the time about the presentation, the Canadian federal government backed away from the idea of closing the ports at that time. In an attempt to find out if that report has been dusted off, the Times contacted CBP offices in Seattle. CBP spokesperson Mike Milne provided a statement that a planned furlough
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of employees, along with reductions to overtime and a hiring freeze, will increase wait times at ports of entry (including international arrivals at airports) and reduce staffing between land ports of entry. Furlough notices have gone out to all 60,000 employees warning they have to take up to 14 days unpaid leave between now and the end of the fiscal year on September 31. “CBP continues to evaluate further impacts of sequestration on our operations. Because the length of the sequestration as well as funding levels through the end of the fiscal year are unknown at this time, it is difficult to project the impact of the reductions on individual employees or job occupations,” said the CBP statement. According to an article by international legal experts (online at mondaq. com) CBP Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar issued ‘guidance’ over the weekend about CBP’s revised operations. “CBP has announced the sequestration cuts will be made equally across the agency, with no preference by port of arrival,” says the article. “Going forward, CBP maintains no individual ports would actually close and that the agency would not take shortcuts on security and safety.” According to the CBP website, sequestration will end when Congress passes legislation that undoes the legal requirements in the BCA and that they may reduce hours of service at select ports of entry. These reductions will be made in a way that minimizes the impact to operations. Any changes to service hours will be port-specific and will be determined at the local level.