In a rule years in the making, seafarers and others from adjacent organisations will have access to US facilities in a timely fashion at no cost.
The US Coast Guard announced the new rule, which applies to seafarers with US visas, other covered individuals, representatives of seamen's welfare and labor organizations, Monday. It was mandated nine years ago by Congress and goes into effect 1 May.
“It’s been a long process," said Douglas Stevenson, the director of the Seamen's Church Institute.
The institute had been supporting the adoption of such a rule for years, Stevenson said, and his organisation's seafarer surveys provided an important point of reference for the Coast Guard in the rule-making process.
Prior to the rule, the Coast Guard relied on language from the 2010 Coast Guard Authorization Act, but the regulation was not always followed. Sometimes at some terminals seafarers had to appeal to the captain of the port to be allowed shoreside. Other times, they were charged a fee.
"The rule makes sure that security is balanced with the ability of those seafarers to get to the gate and get out and do whatever they’re going to do,” said Coast Guard Captain Ryan Manning.
“The idea is the Filipino able bodied seaman isn’t going to have to whip out his checkbook to go to Walmart to buy some toothpaste.”
Manning said in the past, the largest obstacle to seafarer access was a lack of a US visa. Those seafarers will still be denied access, he said.
Further, timeliness is left to the captain of the port.
Each terminal, of which Manning said there were 2,500 plus, will have to revise their security plan in order to get into compliance with the rule. He said they have 13 months from 1 May to do so.
“It’s a positive all around. We know that there this is going to be a little work now for our captains of the port for our inspectors to review some of these plans. Implementation of the rule is always the second step of what we go through," Manning said.
"Now that we’ve got it out there, it’s on the books and we can make sure these seafarers are taken care of.”
