Visiting the Northern Border in Portal and Pushing for Resources to Support Our Security

Portal, North Dakota
Population: 126

Senator Heitkamp tours the Portal crossing manned by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) between the United States and Canada. At any given time, leaders said a line of about 10 trucks are waiting to cross into the United States from Canada at any given time, as pictured above.

Portal is a small, remote North Dakota town that rests on the U.S. — Canadian border and is just over an hour from Montana. Starting as a railroad town to transport grain to the Twin Cities in the late 1800s, Portal continues to be the ‘Gateway to the Great Northwest’ for both the transportation of goods and for people.

55 million people traveled across the Northern Border in 2015 and about $1.6 billion in commodities cross each day.

The Portal Port of Entry is the third-busiest loaded rail car crossing for trade goods along the nation’s 5,500-mile Northern Border.

The Customs and Border Protection officers in Portal play significant roles in maintaining our national security and keeping our border safe, which is why last week, I visited the Portal Point of Entry to meet with many of these officers and management.

Senator Heitkamp speaks with agents conducting inspections on commercial trucks crossing the Northern Border at Portal. These trucks are part of the $1.6 billion in trade that crosses the border each day. The agents doing the inspections confirm paperwork in the booth where Senator Heitkamp stands, talking with the drivers and deciding whether to refer trucks to secondary processing for an additional check.

During the visit, I met with many of the dedicated men and women who maintain border security in Portal about the unique challenges they face and talked about how I’ve been pushing to make sure federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement work closely to make security and the efficient flow of trade top priorities.

After initial inspections, agents at Portal estimate about half of all vehicles are ordered for secondary processing, which includes a full scan of a truck’s contents before being allowed into the United States. Here, Senator Heitkamp speaks with an agent conducting a secondary processing inspection inside of a commercial truck.

In 2008, Portal had 68 full-time employees to help secure the Northern Border. Eight years later, the facility’s numbers have dwindled to just 25 full time employees.

Leaders and agents told me that to properly protect North Dakota’s border, they need a force of 40–45 full-time employees, but to do that we need to address the longstanding challenges they face.

I’ve heard about persistent issues with recruiting and retaining personnel, challenges securing one of our nation’s most remote but high-traffic rail crossings, and the need for technological upgrades. It is clear the federal government needs to do more to protect our nation’s Northern Border and give border patrol officers the resources they need to do just that.

When I spoke with managers on the front lines of border security in Portal — who estimate that only one in every 80 applicants make it through the lengthy hiring process — I got a real sense of their frustration with employee vacancies, their struggle to retain experienced agents, and their worry that more needs to be done to protect security and intellectual property rights, as agents consistently deal with attempts to smuggle counterfeit material across the border. Border security managers also emphasized the dire need for technological improvements and updates — too often, the use of different radio systems, poor wireless connections, and inability to withstand the bitter cold weather Portal frequently experiences can negatively impact the ability of border agents and personnel to communicate and keep communities protected.

Nationwide, vacancy rates at Custom and Border Protection ports of entry are 4.5%, with 28 ports having vacancy rates over 15% — six of which are in North Dakota.

Their comments echoed the challenges I heard from folks across the state working to secure North Dakota’s Northern Border. In the U.S. Senate, I’ve been working in to address the unique issues at the border head on. In April 2015, I brought the former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to Pembina to reinforce the need for resources and attention to the Northern Border.

Senator Heitkamp speaks with local Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) leadership to identify strategies to improve recruitment and retention at remote facilities such as Portal, as well as the greatest challenges agents face in securing the Northern Border. CBP officials reinforced to Senator Heitkamp the need to make hiring more efficient and to improve technology along the Northern Border, and Senator Heitkamp discussed the need for her Flexible HIRE Act and Northern Border Security Review Act to tackle those challenges.

Based on those conversations and many others I’ve had with law enforcement and border patrol, I introduced the Northern Border Security Review Act in July 2015 which would help tackle recruitment and retention challenges, and examine the best ways to improve technology, infrastructure, and tools to help law enforcement secure the border.

Earlier this year, I introduced another bill to address challenges at the Northern Border by giving the federal government more tools to hire and retain the effective, vibrant federal workforce it needs, particularly in remote areas like Portal. My bill, the Flexible HIRE Act, would improve employee retention in at hard-to-fill positions at less populated locations.

Senator Heitkamp tours the border facilities in Portal, N.D. The facility opened in late 2012.

The men and women who protect our border, like those I met in Portal, work hard every day to protect our national security. But too often, the challenges faced at the Northern Border are forgotten and the federal government fails to give those at the border our full support to best do their jobs.

My visit to Portal strengthened my commitment to making sure we make necessary and long-term investments to protect America’s borders — and that means investing in the infrastructure, technology, and tools to recruit and retain quality personnel to help keep our nation safe.