Washington, Feb 27, 2011 - The Border Trade Alliance turned 25 years old last month.

It was formed in January 1986 during a meeting with border business people at an El Paso hotel.

The organization, now based in San Antonio, gained attention when it helped draft, and lobbied hard for passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"NAFTA is where the organization got its fame, and now it's the premier advocacy organization" for cross-border trade and transportation issues, said Nelson Balido, 40, a former Bush administration official who became the alliance's president in January 2010.

"For 22 states in the U.S., the number one trading partner is Mexico, and our goal is to tell that story," Balido said.

U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said the alliance is a "critical advocate for our region."

"The business leaders and other stakeholders in the organization have a credible voice on our border security andÊtrade policies, and our government's top leaders value their input," Reyes said.

Many of the alliance's members have testified before Congress on policies that affect the way business is done on the border, Reyes noted.

The alliance has 85 members, Balido said -- large companies that operate maquilas, or manufacturing plants, in Mexico; large defense contractors; city governments; and others. It has a staff of six, including four contractors, and a budget of under $1 million. Much of its lobbying is done by alliance members.

One of the alliance's ongoing issues is long waits to cross international bridges from Mexico into the United States.

"I hear all over the United States about bridge wait times," Balido said. "It's a never-ending battle."

"We need 5,000 new Customs agents at the border" to do inspections and speed up crossing times, he said.

El Paso businesswoman Veronica Callaghan, alliance board vice chairwoman and an alliance founder, said the bridge-wait issue has been around for a long time. Wait times haven't decreased even though traffic has diminished, she noted.

"Federal agencies always have different wait times than we have," said Callaghan, vice president of Kasco Ventures, her family's company which owns and manages industrial properties in El Paso.

"No one wants to build new bridges. We supported building another international bridge (in El Paso), and it got shot down."

The alliance is an offshoot of the El Paso Foreign Trade Association, which formed a year before the alliance, Callaghan said. Members of the El Paso association, which continues to work on trade and international bridge issues in this area, decided an organization was needed to lobby for issues affecting the entire U.S.-Mexico border. It also works on issues tied to the U.S.-Canada border.

The alliance's first success was to get a 25-mile border zone designated for trucks from Mexico to operate in, Callaghan said.

The alliance supports allowing Mexican trucking companies that are "certified and qualified with safety regulations" to operate beyond border regions in the United States. It's been a controversial issue for years.

"It's the only aspect of Nafta not implemented," Callaghan said.

The alliance has taken an aggressive stand on trying to get the United States government to do more in tackling the growing drug-cartel violence in Juárez and other parts of northern Mexico, Callaghan said.

"This puts us at odds with economic development people that want to pretend it (violence) is not as bad as it is," Callaghan said.

Balido said the alliance this year will lobby for more federal personnel on the border, for expanding and modernizing international bridges and for more technology.

"It will be a tough year with federal budget cuts," Balido said. "We'll continue hacking away. We'll keep educating Congress and our constituents."

Vic Kolenc may be reached at vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; 546-6421.

More information: thebta.org