Opinion: Pre-Arrival Processing System
B>By Jim Giermanski
i>Professor
elmont Abbey College
Many subject to these rules have complained that the demands of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) levied upon the motor carrier industry and U.S. shippers in Mexico are unnecessarily harsh.
Indeed, the new requirements for our southern border are unnecessarily harsh for the Mexican motor carrier under the definition of “incoming truck carrier.”
Indirectly, the requirements may be equally harsh for the U.S. shipper, consignee and carrier connected to the crossing process by contract or other business relationship to the Mexican “incoming truck carrier.”
The factor making security precarious is that the originating Mexican long-hauler that carries the goods to the border is not the motor carrier crossing the goods into the United States. This practice poses two specific security risks not addressed by the proposed rules.
First, the proposed rules do not define “incoming truck carrier.” Is it the Mexican long-hauler or the drayage carrier?
At the largest port on the southern border, the actual “incoming truck carrier” is most likely to be a small Mexican transfer carrier without a credit history, personal background information on the owner or driver (usually one and the same), or even a performance history. Typically, they also lack the ability to communicate with CBP electronically.
In other words, Mexican motor carriers about which the United States knows virtually nothing are the very carriers likely to be included in the definition of “incoming truck carrier.”
The rules also seem to assume that the carrier is itself somehow able to make the decision to cross the border into the United States. In truth, no carrier, Mexican long-hauler or drayage carrier can leave Mexico until a Mexican customs broker (not Mexican Customs authorities) releases the cargo through the execution of a Mexican government document called a pedimento de exportacion.
The decision to release the cargo is the broker’s and he or she makes that decision based on business arrangements. In nearly all cases, the trailer is already at the border on the Mexican side simply waiting for the broker to act.
In effect, the cargo is stranded in a drop-off waiting lot. The entire drayage system and the clutter of trailers waiting to cross are the direct result of the Mexican broker system, which creates the conditions for a potential threat to the United States.
Despite this, CBP has never used its influence to change the system or even made an attempt to negotiate a change to this system through the proper U.S. agencies. The simple truth is that it is easier to make rules affecting the U.S. shipper or U.S. carrier through its Mexican affiliate than it is to treat the core of the crossing problem directly.
There also is no mention of the loss of custody, which takes place on the Mexican side in drayage drop-off lots prior to crossing. This is the biggest weakness in the proposed rules, which omit the actual condition of risk posing a potential threat to the United States.
In the drayage drop-lots — called corralones — the trailer lacks adequate supervision and control. Even large shippers can average an 11-hour wait before crossing the border into the United States. With the current degree of security at these drop-off lots, it is easy during that 11-hour period to make an unauthorized entry into a waiting trailer.
Imagine trailers sitting there 24 hours or longer. How do the proposed rules treat that issue? They may make business easier for CBP, but they do not meet the security threat reduction necessary in the United States.
They don’t even include the role of the Mexican customs broker in the verification of outbound trailers crossing into the United States.
My recommendation is to require the rule-writers at CBP to be present in October in Laredo, Texas, for a planned, extended demonstration of technology appropriate in solving some of these problems. The demonstration is funded by contract with the U.S. Department of Energy and support from Southwestern Motor Transport.
The technology detects breaches into a trailer or container, records and reports those breaches, and automatically provides the data required under the proposed rules for motor carriers. It also sends required notification prior to arrival and solves the drayage problem of unsecured trailers, unknown drayage carriers and possible unauthorized access to the trailer.
The technology also solves the problem of drayage companies without the computer hardware or computer information systems necessary to communicate with CBP as proposed under these rules.
As written, the proposed rules for the southern border are inadequate for dealing with a system of drayage which for the most part employs small, poorly equipped, family-operated motor carriers unprepared to provide the security of the larger Mexican long-haul motor carriers or drayage firms of commensurate capacity. It is the latter that should be the “incoming truck carrier” mentioned in the proposed rules.
Prof. Giermanski is director of international business studies at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C.
This story appeared in the Sept. 15 edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
