Letter to Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner of the US Customs and Border Protection - Visiting the Santa Teresa Port of Entry

Letter

Thank you for your commitment to safeguard our nation's borders and facilitate lawful international trade and commerce. Our ports of entry not only help keep the nation safe and secure, but also strengthen the diversity of our state's economy.

Southern New Mexico is a fast-growing international trade center, and recent federal and private investments in the Santa Teresa Port of Entry (POE) and surrounding areas have helped expand and improve the efficiency of trade along the New Mexico-Chihuahua international border. We invite you to visit the Santa Teresa POE and border industrial zone to learn how important these investments have been to the region.

Federal investments to increase expansion and efficiency include a $10 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act project to improve infrastructure and a recent $400,000 award from the U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) highly competitive Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) Discretionary Grant to develop a strategic bi-national transportation plan for the region. Additionally, the completion and grand opening of a $400 million, 2,200 acre, Union Pacific rail facility and intermodal freight terminal in Santa Teresa has yielded tremendous opportunities to boost our state's economy and continues to make southern New Mexico a hub for domestic and international commerce.

Furthermore, we are pleased by a U.S. Department of Commerce study that reported that New Mexico's goods exports to Mexico increased from $800 million to $1.55 billion in 2014, representing a 93 percent increase. With this surge, New Mexico led all U.S. states in goods export percentage growth to Mexico and is the fastest-growing state in the country for jobs related to international exports.

To continue this growth, we must ensure efficient trade along the border, ease future flow of traffic in the years to come, and keep our ports of entry operating at full capacity. To this end, we strongly support Dell Inc.'s application to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Reimbursable Services Program to fund four additional hours of operation for south-bound commercial traffic, Monday through Friday, at the Santa Teresa POE for one year. We believe this partnership will improve local logistics, trade operations, and significantly contribute to New Mexico's burgeoning export growth.

Thank you again for your commitment to our nation's borders. We look forward to continuing to work with you and Customs and Border Protection to keep our nation safe and secure and to ensure our border communities in New Mexico prosper from their unique bi-national culture and economy.

Source