TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and eight other American legislators published a letter last week calling on the American customs agency to approve Taiwan's bid to become the first in the Indo-Pacific to preclear U.S.-bound passengers.

The letter was signed by Rubio, Senate colleagues Mitt Romney (R-UT), Gary Peters (D-MI), James Inhofe (R-OK), and John Cornyn (R-TX), and four congressmen. Addressed to acting Commissioner Troy Miller of the Department of Homeland Security's Customs Border Protection (CBP), it advocated "establishing, when public health conditions allow, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection preclearance facility at Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan."

First introduced between the U.S. and Canada in 1952, preclearance allows passengers to undergo inspections at participating airports in order to skip CBP and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inspections after landing in the U.S. Once they step onto American soil, they are effectively treated as domestic passengers regardless of their nationality.

In the letter, the lawmakers pointed out that the proposed CBP station would allow inbound passengers from Taiwan to avoid long lines and grant airlines access to more gates. It would also stop "inadmissible" would-be travelers from boarding and reduce crowding by cutting down on the number of passengers needing to be screened on arrival.

This would lower the risk of missing connecting flights. It would also give the Taoyuan airport and airlines operating there a competitive edge by opening up direct routes to U.S. airports that lack CBP facilities.

The signatories called Taiwan "an outstanding choice" for the next preclearance zone. They stressed the importance of the Indo-Pacific for the U.S. economy and noted that Taiwan is the U.S.' ninth-largest trading partner, that there are already a number of direct Taiwan-U.S. flights, and that Taoyuan International Airport is "a major transit point in Asia."

Airlines have been operating a total of 11 nonstop flights from Taoyuan to the U.S., including the cities of Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Houston, and New York.

Taiwan had submitted its application for preclearance by December of last year. Speaking to Washington think tank the Heritage Foundation, then-acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said that month the department was "engaging with Taiwan" on the application, listing the move among several steps to be taken to "block China's exploitation of our border and immigration system."

Currently, over 600 CBP personnel are stationed at 16 such preclearance facilities in Canada, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Bermuda, Aruba, and The Bahamas. In 2019, they precleared some 22 million passengers, comprising 16 percent of U.S.-bound commercial air travelers, according to the CBP.