Gov. Scott to Feds: More Personnel Needed for Immigration Processing at Miami Airport

Posted on Thu, Sep. 20, 2012

Gov. Scott to feds: More personnel needed for immigration processing at Miami airport

By CHARLES RABIN [email protected]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott weighed in Thursday on a staffing controversy involving customs and immigration officers at Miami International Airport, telling the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that the personnel shortage “has the potential to damage Florida’s image” and business growth.

In a letter to homeland security Director Janet Napolitano, Scott said because Customs and Border Protection cannot adequately meet staffing levels at MIA — only about half the lanes are fully staffed — baggage is getting lost and passengers are missing flights.

“This problem could potentially do considerable damage to Florida’s international competitiveness, which could adversely affect job creation in our state,” Scott wrote. “Over one million jobs in Florida depend on international trade and investment, and this is one of the healthiest and fastest growing sectors in our economy.”

Customs and Border Protection’s Miami spokeswoman Magdalia Travis referred a request for a response to the agency’s Washington headquarters. That office did not call back.

Miami-Dade County is near the completion of a $6.4 billion, 12-year overhaul of the airport, which includes a $180 million state-of-the-art immigration and customs facility with 72 lanes in the North Terminal. A similar immigration station with 48 lanes was also built in the new South Terminal.

The construction was designed to increase capacity from 1,200 passengers an hour to more than 3,000.

Until June, Customs and Border Protection had said the stations would be fully staffed, stating, “Our position is, if they build it, we will come.”

But when the North Terminal opened in July, Customs and Border Protection failed to supply enough agents to fill the 152 immigration lanes at the airport’s three terminals, north, south and central. Now, only about half the lanes have enough staffing. To make up for the shortfall, Airport Director Jose Abreu shut the Central Terminal immigration lanes and shifted its staff to the North Terminal.

That means a walk of up to 1,400 feet, or about a quarter mile, for some passengers.

The lack of personnel defeats the point of expanding and improving the customs and immigration stations, Abreu said, because even though the physical capacity of the operation has increased, half the lanes are closed and folks are forced to walk long distances.

Abreu said his staff used local and state contacts to get the governor’s attention. They discussed the problem when Scott called him about three months ago.

Abreu said to alleviate some of the problem, he has offered to pay overtime, but it appears there just aren’t enough federal agents to staff the lanes.

The airport director’s biggest fear now is that Homeland Security might grant Brazil a visa waiver option that President Barack Obama favors. That would allow travelers from designated countries to visit the United States for 90 days without a non-immigrant visitor visa. Brazilians flock to the United States. According to Abreu about 3.8 million visited last year with 1.5 million traveling through Miami.

Abreu said if the waiver goes through, that number would double.

“I can assure you, it will increase traffic substantially,” he said. “Where do you think they’re going to go?”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/20/v-print/3012518/gov-scott-to- feds-more-personnel.html#storylink=cpy http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-mia-customs-20121003,0,6081226,print.story Customs still slow at MIA More than 700 people a day miss their flight

By Ken Kaye, Sun Sentinel

8:02 AM EDT, October 3, 2012

More than 700 travelers per day miss connecting flights out of Miami International Airport because they spend more than an hour clearing customs, MIA officials say.

The problem is primarily in the airport's new North Terminal, where 15,000 to 20,000 travelers arrive per day, mostly from the Caribbean, Latin America and Europe. About 2,000 of those are thought to come from Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Airport officials, who have promoted the new terminal as being ultra-modern and easy to use, blame U.S. Customs and Border Protection for providing inadequate staffing, causing inspection lanes to clog, particularly during peak hours.

They would like to see 62 of 72 lanes staffed in the customs inspection area to reduce clearance times to about 30 minutes. Between 45 and 55 of the lanes currently are staffed during peak periods, airport officials said.

"You're talking one out of 20 passengers missing their flights, and that's just unacceptable," said airport spokesman Greg Chin. "We're not meeting the kind of customer experience we want people to have."

The 700 missed connections are on top of those around the rest of the airport, usually resulting from flight delays.

MIA saw about 18.4 million international travelers in 2011, second in the nation only to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, which handled about 23.9 million.

By comparison, Fort Lauderdale received 3.6 million international travelers last year, from dozens of cities in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe. Even during peak hours, those travelers are usually processed in 15 to 22 minutes, according to Customs and Border Protection officials. Palm Beach International Airport saw 74,019 international passengers, who flew to the Bahamas, Canada and Puerto Rico, in 2011. Customs processing delays are virtually non-existent because agents are "scheduled specifically for a flight that needs to be cleared," said airport spokeswoman Casandra Davis.

Gov. Rick Scott said Miami's bottleneck could hurt Florida's draw to international tourists and businesses, which in turn could harm job growth.

"Over 1 million jobs in Florida depend on international trade and investment, and this is one of the healthiest and fastest growing sectors in our economy," Scott recently wrote in a letter to Janet Napolitano, director of Homeland Security, which oversees Customs and Border Protection.

Customs officials have told Miami International that they plan to add 80 more agents by December. Chin said that should help but doesn't guarantee the problem will be solved.

"Unfortunately, we're in wait-and-see mode," he said.

In the meantime, Matt Chandler, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, disputed that international passengers are being subjected to excessive processing times at MIA.

"Over 92 percent of passengers processed by CBP through the Miami International Airport wait 60 minutes or less," he said.

During peak evening hours, up to 1,650 passengers funnel through the customs area in MIA's North Terminal, according to the Customs and Border Protection website. Chandler noted that all of them must be carefully checked to "protect the United States."

The Customs processing area in the new terminal is located at Concourse D, where about 70 percent of the international travelers arrive on American Airlines and American Eagle flights. Of those, 40 percent are U.S. citizens and 60 percent are foreign travelers, Martha Pantin, American spokeswoman, said.

"Non-citizens arriving take twice as long to process," she said.

American also would like to see more customs agents to reduce missed connections and to maintain MIA "as a major international gateway," Pantin said, adding that the airline's international passengers have grown 6.3 percent this year.

To consolidate more customs agents at Concourse D, customs and airport officials agreed to shut down a central processing area. That, however, created inconvenience for passengers arriving on Concourses E and F, as they now must walk up to a quarter mile to clear customs on Concourse D. Chin said the problem of missed flights was worst during the heavily traveled summer months, when 25,000 to 30,000 international travelers arrived each day — and more than 1,000 travelers per day missed connections.

The missed connection problem comes as the airport is nearing completion of a major 12-year, 6.4 billion renovation of the airport. That includes the $180 million immigration and customs complex in the North Terminal, which opened on July 31.

One way to speed up the trip through customs: join Customs and Border Protection's Global Entry program, which provides expedited screening at self-service kiosks, Chin said. For information about the program, visit globalentry.gov.

"Average processing time at the kiosk: less than a minute," he said. [email protected] or 954-572-2085

Scott: Lack of Customs Staffing at MIA Could Damage Florida's Image, Economy Gov. Rick Scott wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to highlight the problem Thursday Thursday, Sep 20, 2012 | Updated 10:43 PM EDT http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Scott-Lack-of-Customs-Staffing-at-MIA-Could-Damage-Floridas-Image- Economy-170573746.html (click for video) The first travelers and crew members were welcomed to Miami International Airport's new international arrivals hub early Tuesday. The airport's deputy director, Ken Pyatt, talks about its "new front door."

Insufficient U.S. Customs and Border Protection staffing at Miami International Airport could damage Florida’s image and its “international business competitiveness,” Gov. Rick Scott told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in a letter Thursday.

Customs and Border Protection, which is a part of Napolitano’s department, has not been able to provide the necessary staff for the new $180 million Federal Inspection Services facility that processes international passengers at the airport, Scott wrote.

The agency has not been able to staff the recommended minimum of 62 of the 72 passport control lanes during peak arrival periods, Scott said.

“As a result, customers, often numbering well over 1,000 daily, and their baggage are misconnected and must be re-booked on later flights, many leaving the next day,” he wrote.

That problem could “do considerable damage to Florida’s international competitiveness, which could adversely affect job creation in our state,” according to Scott.

“Over one million jobs in Florida depend on international trade and investment, and this is one of the healthiest and fastest growing sectors of our economy,” the governor wrote. He noted that 97 percent of all international airline passengers come into Florida via MIA.

ICE Deports SoFla Man, Helps Him Return

But passengers who have passed through the new facility since its opening in July have often described their MIA experience as “chaotic,” Scott wrote. The exits from Customs are also insufficiently staffed, resulting in a bottleneck for passengers, he added.

Scott invited Napolitano to visit the airport’s facility so she can see the challenges it faces because of the lack of Customs staffers, he said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on Scott’s letter Thursday. At MIA on Thursday, Aziz Ali didn't blame staffing but rather flight schedules for the problems in the Customs area.

"The number of flights coming in at the same time, it's just too many passengers coming in at the same time," said Aziz, who was picking up his brother, an international passenger. "No matter how many officers they have, they're still going to have lines."

Gov. Rick Scott complains to Department of Homeland Security about Miami International Airport customs Scott letter to Sec. Napolitano terms 'chaotic' traveler experience http://www.local10.com/news/Gov-Rick-Scott-complains-to-Department-of- Homeland-Security-about-Miami-International-Airport- customs/-/1717324/16678748/-/3hmiki/-/index.html? utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gov-rick-scott- complains-to-department-of-homeland-security-about-miami-international- airport-customs (click for video)

Published On: Sep 20 2012 02:21:45 PM EDT Updated On: Sep 20 2012 06:39:20 PM EDT

MIAMI -

Florida Gov. Scott wrote a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, describing what he called "a serious situation" concerning U.S. Customs at Miami International Airport.

In the letter, Scott wrote that MIA is number one in the country for international flights and that 97 percent of all international airline passengers arrive in Florida there.

READ: Scott's letter to Napolitano But Scott wrote that because of insufficient customs staffing at MIA's new $180 million Federal Inspection Services facility, "Written comments often describe the MIA experience as 'chaotic.' In addition to the passport control lanes not being adequately staffed, the exits from Customs are also insufficiently staffed by CBP officers, which results in a bottleneck for passengers trying to exit the facility."

Scott wrote these troubles could eventually impact Florida's bottom line.

"The problem could do considerable damage to Florida's international competitiveness, which could adversely affect job creation in our state," Scott wrote. "Over one million jobs in Florida depend on international trade and investment, and this is one of the healthiest and fastest growing sectors of our economy."

Scott urged Napolitano to take a first-hand look at the problem.

Local 10 has reached out to the DHS for comment about this letter.