Montana Sen. Jon Tester this week pressed the Department of Homeland Security secretary about returning Montana’s ports of entry to pre-pandemic hours.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Tester during an appropriations hearing for the agency on Wednesday that hours of operations remain reduced for several ports between Sweet Grass, north of Shelby, and Raymond, north of Plentywood in northeast Montana, because of the low number of daily crossings.
Tester told Mayorkas the crossing numbers are low because the hours are reduced.
“That’s the point,” Tester said. "The point is you can’t go by the traffic when in fact people aren’t going to go there because of the hours.”
Raymond is open 7 days a week from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Tester said it needs to again be a 24-hour port because of its access to the U.S.'s No. 1 trading partner, Canada.
Mayorkas said an evaluation of the traffic numbers is underway and he would speak to Customs and Border Protection about the crossings and get back to Tester.