Ports Get Security-Card Extension to Next Year
Thousands of workers and truckers who will need a security card to get inside port facilities have been given some good news.
The Department of Homeland Security on May 2 extended the deadline for getting those cards, known as the Transportation Workers Identification Credential (TWIC), by seven months to April 15, 2009.
Nico Melendez, a spokesperson for the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which is overseeing the program, said it was going to be impossible for some of the country’s ports to have all their workers enrolled by the original Sept. 25 deadline.
“Ports need at least 90 days to get their workers enrolled, and some ports in the United States haven’t even begun the process,” he said, noting that smaller ports won’t begin the enrollment process until this summer.
The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach started enrolling their workers and truckers on Dec. 12. But only 20,000 of the estimated 60,000 to 100,000 workers that call at the ports have filled out the proper paperwork, gone through a criminal background check and paid their $132.50 fee, Melendez said.
Only two centers are set up locally for TWIC enrollment: one in Long Beach at 301 E. Ocean Blvd. and another in San Pedro, Calif., at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 601 S. Palos Verdes St. Seven mobile enrollment offices visit the ports.
Because demand is increasing, a third site, at Berth 206 at the Port of Los Angeles, is scheduled to open in early June, Melendez said.
Anyone with unescorted access beyond the ports’ terminal gates must have a TWIC card, which is valid for five years. The controversial tamper-resistant card can only be obtained by legal residents, and the requirement is expected to eliminate as much as one-quarter of the mostly 16,000 independent truckers who haul cargo to and from the ports.
Port security became a hot topic after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 mandated that the TSA and the U.S. Coast Guard set up an identification-card system at the nation’s 147 ports, which covers an estimated 1.2 million people. Applicants must be fingerprinted and sit for a digital photo. Federal officials estimate that nationwide only about 260,000 workers have their TWIC cards.
The enrollment program has been implemented on a rolling basis. The first port to start the TWIC process was in Wilmington, Del., which began signing up its employees on Oct. 16. The program was expanded to Corpus Christi, Texas, on Nov. 1. The Port of Oakland became the first California port to begin enrollment on Nov. 8. The Port of San Francisco begins signing up workers on May 14. —Deborah Belgum
