U.S. Customs and Border Protection will get a new home for its air operations center in the Grand Forks Sector, and at least one Congress member wants it to be at a UAS park.
U.S. Sen. John Hoeven visited Grand Forks Friday to meet with CBP leaders regarding potential sites for the project after funding secured in the federal budget. The 2017 budget allocated $8 million for the new structure, which will house CBP's unmanned aircraft. Their existing operations are based at Grand Forks Air Force Base.
The need for a new home arose in the last six months, Hoeven said. As the Grand Forks Air Force Base shifts from the Air Mobility Command to the Air Combat Command, they will need to reclaim a squadron building from the CBP. The Air Force needs the building in October to help expand its Global Hawk program, Hoeven said
"That's a good thing; that's what we want," Hoeven told the Herald. "We want the Air Force continuing to put down roots here and adding to the Global Hawk mission."
But with CBP needing to vacate the space, Hoeven said he worked within the U.S. Senate to ensure the agency would have money to build a new space in Grand Forks.
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"That's why we secured $8 million through the appropriations process so they could stay here," Hoeven said.
Hoeven and CBP Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan reviewed three possibilities for a new CBP National Air Security Operations Center in Grand Forks: one is to temporarily occupy an Air Force squadron building as they currently do, which would need about $1 million in renovations, while working to find a permanent home; another would be to move into the vacant Air Force simulation building and conduct a full renovation to make it a permanent home; the third-one Hoeven said he prefers-would move the CBP facility to the Grand Sky Technology Park.
A move to Grand Sky would put the CBP facility in the same industrial park as defense contractors Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Atomics, which produce systems CBP uses for its drones.
Hoeven said further funding might need to obtained in 2018 to build a facility at Grand Sky.
An additional $5.7 million was dedicated toward a different form of border protection: a USDA inspection facility at the U.S.-Canada border crossing on Interstate 29 near Pembina, N.D.
Hoeven went to the Pembina Port of Entry two years ago, where CBP leaders told him they needed a facility to inspect cattle and agricultural goods to screen for potential diseases. Right now, inspectors either have to stick to doing a basic check by simply opening up doors or relying on Canadian officials to allow the U.S. to use their facility in Emerson, Man.
"They identified this as a need, and that's why we went to work to get them the funding," Hoeven told the Herald.
Construction is expected to begin by the end of 2017.
