December 18, 2019 200 PM
FAR WEST TEXAS — The holiday season is the busiest time of year for border officials, as families in Ojinaga and beyond travel north to the United States to see family and vice versa. With that in mind, Customs and Border Protection put out guidance on Friday to “ensure a smooth and efficient processing experience” for holiday travelers.
First, the basics: Border officials encourage the public to check on wait times at port of entries, which is available online at (at https://bwt.cbp.gov/) or via the CBP BWT (Border Wait Times) phone app. For those traveling through any of the El Paso ports-of-entry, information on traffic conditions is also available through the city, at www.elpasotexas.gov/international-bridges.
They’re also encouraging travelers to apply for tourist permits online. Provisional I-94 visas can be applied for at https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov.
Trying to bring prohibited items into the United States can slow down travel and even lead to fines. For that reason, CBP says travelers should also educate themselves on which items are currently prohibited. For example, the USDA recently restricted imports of tomatoes and peppers from Mexico after the plants were determined to be possible carriers of the tomato brown rugose plant virus.
To make travel times even faster, they suggest U.S. travelers use travel documents equipped with “radio-frequency identification technology” which allows those travelers to use “Ready Lanes” and can reduce wait times by as much as 20 percent. Anyone who has received travel documents in the last 24 months already has this technology, CBP stated.
Closer to home, travelers should expect “significant wait times” at the Presidio/Ojinaga port of entry due to ongoing construction work on the international bridge, said Gregory Davis, a CBP spokesman. He said the port would be “manned at the maximum capacity” to try to make up for the delay.
He stressed that border officials were doing their best and asked that travelers please be patient as they encounter holiday crowds. “A lot of this stuff is out of our hands,” he said of the expected delays in Presidio/Ojinaga.
