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Bill Owens: A DHS Shutdown

The recent threat to shut down the Department of Homeland Security for those of us in the North Country, given our proximity to the US/Canadian border and our dependence upon it, is truly troubling.

Whether we live in Glens Falls, Saratoga, Albany, Plattsburgh, Massena or Watertown, the impact of commerce across the US/Canada border with our neighbors in Ontario and Quebec is extraordinarily important to our economies. For most of us, the visibility of our Canadian neighbors is evidenced in our shopping malls, at Lake George, Lake Placid, and Lake Champlain in the summer, attendance at winter carnivals in Saranac Lake, Lake Placid and Lake George and many other venues in our communities.

We have experienced extra ordinary success in having Canadian owned businesses relocate to our communities. We have Irving Tissue in Fort Edward, New York Air Brake in Watertown, dozens of businesses in Plattsburgh and Saratoga including Bombardier and Nova Bus, all of which represent hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in our communities, significant capital investment by our Canadian neighbors all of which demonstrate the importance of our trade relationships.

Trade between the United States and Canada is well over six hundred billion dollars ($600,000,000,000) a year, while trade between New York, Quebec and Ontario is over $30 billion per year, more than two million people (2,000,000) cross the Champlain/LaColle Border delivering hundreds of thousands of our Canadian friends to our communities spending millions of dollars in our local economies.

The threat posed by defunding DHS for purely political reasons is disingenuous at best, as it focuses on overturning the President’s recent executive order. This could be a catastrophic event, putting tens of thousands of DHS personnel on furlough and leaving those working unpaid. The real solution is to enact The Senate bill passed in the 113th Congress on a bipartisan basis which was never acted upon by the House of Representatives which could include the striking off the President’s Executive Order. Immigration reform that would benefit our farmers and technology development among their areas is critical to our economic well-being as many experts have indicated a substantial inflow of taxes coming to the federal, state and local governments, as the result of immigration reform.

Former congressman Bill Owens represented New York's North Country from 2009 until retiring from the House in 2015. The Democrat is now a strategic advisor in the Washington Office of McKenna, Long and Aldridge, and a partner in the Plattsburgh firm of Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombly.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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