Cornyn, Cuellar, Salinas, to speak at next week's TBC land ports conference
Submitted by Southern Shift on Wed, 2009-11-04 13:46
Authored by Steve Taylor of the Rio Grande Guardian
LAREDO, Nov. 4 - U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, and newly appointed General Services Administration Regional Administrator J.D. Salinas will be among the speakers at an upcoming Texas Border Coalition conference.
The conference is titled “Balancing Security, Trade and Travel: A Looming Crisis at U.S. Ports of Entry.” It will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., on Friday, Nov. 13, in Room 101 of the De La Garza Building, Laredo Community College (Fort McIntosh Campus), West End Washington Street, in Laredo.
Monica Weisberg-Stewart, chair of the TBC’s border security and immigration committee, said the conference will be important and timely.
“U.S. land ports of entry are vital to America’s economic vitality. Last year, our land ports of entry conducted a record $830 billion in cross-border trade, processed 46 million pedestrians, nearly 11 million trucks and 108 million personal vehicles,” Weisberg-Stewart said.
“This burden is overwhelming to our land ports of entry, many of which lack the infrastructural, technological and manpower capacity to adequately address the job to which they are assigned.”
Weisberg-Stewart said the TBC is dedicated to organizing a national coalition to strengthen security at the nation’s land ports of entry. “We hope the Laredo conference will help build awareness of the essential role the ports of entry play in protecting our nation’s borders and facilitating legitimate trade and travel,” she said.
