PENINSULA DAILY NEWS AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
If federal immigration officials get their way, people crossing into the United States on commercial ships could soon pay a $3 surcharge.
This includes thousands of local residents and tourists who return to Port Angeles from Victoria aboard two ferries.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said Monday that the fee — first reported by the Peninsula Daily News in early May — could be imposed later this summer.
The $3 would help pay for beefed-up border patrols in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
INS officials have not said exactly when the fee would be implemented — except that it probably won’t happen until at least August.
Our members of Congress, meanwhile, say they’re doing all they can to kill the fee.
“This new fee could have very serious consequences” on several passenger ferries that operate between Washington state and Canada, says U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, who represents the North Olympic Peninsula.
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