Onerous Border Crossing Provisions Excised In Appropriations Bill

June 25, 1998

The Senate Appropriations Committee today approved a funding bill that includes a provision deleting the troublesome border crossing requirements which could cause traffic bottlenecks for Canadians crossing the U.S. border.

Included in the bill was a provision by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who is chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, that completely strikes the potentially burdensome provision in the 1996 immigration reform bill.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, strongly supported Gregg's efforts. In April, Leahy, working with others, also helped shepherd through the Senate Judiciary Committee a separate, free-standing immigration bill that remedies the border crossing problem. Leahy said that given the few legislative days remaining in the session, he and his allies were looking for backup strategies to remedy the problem, and appropriations bills are always must-pass measures.

"We are out to prevent border bottlenecks anyway we can, and this action gives us a potent new option," said Leahy, who praised Gregg for insisting that provisions remedying the border crossing problem were included in the CommerceJusticeState funding bill.

Vermonters and Canadians have been concerned that implementation of Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which mandates the development of an automated entry-exit monitoring system at all the nation's borders beginning this fall, would cause significant delays along the northern border and would require Canadians to carry additional documentation to cross into the United States. Governor Howard Dean, after returning from a conference in Canada between New England governors and Canadian officials earlier this month, highlighted the potential problem and endorsed steps to fix it.