Return to Article: Travel industry lobbying to help ease U.S. policies
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This is not a new story. We heard the same complaints at JFK Airport in 1980. No matter how much we "expedited" the flow of traffic through Immigration & Customs (now CBP), people still complained. The best example of this was when former NYC Mayor Ed Koch complained that inspection delays at the airport were costing the city millions of dollars, and we needed to expedite the flow of businessmen and tourists entering from overseas. A short time later, he complained that Customs at JFK wasn't doing enough to stop the flow of narcotics into the U.S.!
The same hypocrisy goes on today. If a group of Taliban chartered a flight to the U.S., the travel industry would complain about their being delayed at the border! It's all about the almighty tourist and business dollar, and the heck with national security. If the U.S. really wants secure borders, it could be done, but the outcry from the travelling public and industry would be enormous.
You can't have it both ways.
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I also wish they could hire 200 more CUSTOMS officers. Unfortunately, in 2003, after 214 years of service to this nation, the U.S. CUSTOMS SERVICE was destroyed, and it's employees, along with employees from the former INS, were thrown into the twin disasters known as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the equally inept Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). How soon people forget!
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