Senate Subcommittee Approves Bill Containing Senator Collins' Measure to Reject Land Border Fee

Press Release

U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today announced that the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee has approved the Fiscal Year 2014 funding bill. This bill contains language, authored by Senator Collins, that would expressly prohibit the funding of any study of the feasibility and cost of instituting a fee for anyone crossing into our country by land from Canada or Mexico.

"I grew up in Aroostook County, Maine, which shares a border with Canada. I know that, for so many border community residents, crossing the border is a way of life in order to access essential services, travel to their jobs, to shop and dine, to attend church or to visit family. Any fee, no matter how small, would have a negative impact on the day-to-day commerce and travel between border communities," said Senator Collins. "It would unduly penalize families who have relatives on either side of the border. In addition, it would damage relations between the United States and the neighbors that are vital trading partners.

Current federal law bars the U.S. Treasury and the Attorney General from charging and collecting any fee for the immigration inspection and pre-inspection of passengers arriving over land at a U.S. port of entry whose journey originated in Canada or Mexico. Senator Collins has been working to ensure that this prohibition is maintained.

* On April 25th, Senator Collins sent a letter to the Chairman and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, expressing her serious concern with the Department of Homeland Security's plan to study the feasibility and cost related to imposing a crossing fee on pedestrians and passenger vehicles along the northern and southwest borders, as proposed in the President's FY 2014 budget request. In the letter, Senator Collins requests specific language to block the misguided plan.

* On May 16, along with Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Senator Collins sent a letter to DHS Secretary Napolitano opposing a proposed land border crossing fee. Again, on May 24th, Senator Collins joined 15 of her colleagues in a letter to Secretary Napolitano expressing opposition to this proposal.

* Also on May 24th, Senators Collins and Leahy led another letter, signed by 14 of their colleagues, to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security requesting that the subcommittee include language that they authored to prevent any funds from being used to conduct a study assessing the feasibility and cost relating to establishing and collecting a land border crossing fee along the northern and southwest borders.

This bill must now be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, which is scheduled to consider it on Thursday.

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