AUSTIN, Texas — State troopers will stop inspections of trucks crossing the border in one part of the state following one Mexican governor’s concession to Texas‘s demands, but inspections will continue across the state despite growing pressure from businesses.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday afternoon announced alongside Samuel Alejandro Garcia Sepulveda, the governor of Mexican border state Nuevo Leon, that Texas will cease inspections of trucks after they have entered the country in return for Nuevo Leon stepping up security as cartels attempt to move people and drugs into the United States.
“Border bridges have become clogged because of a policy by Texas to thoroughly inspect vehicles coming from Mexico, whether it be Nuevo Leon or the other states,” Abbott said during a press conference in Laredo. “Governor Garcia has begun and will continue enhancing border security enforcement measures on the Nuevo Leon side of the border, both at ports of entry and alongside the Rio Grande River, to prevent illegal immigration from Nuevo Leon into Texas.”
“Since Nuevo Leon has increased security on its side of the border, the Texas Department of Public Safety can return to its previous practice of random searches of vehicles crossing the bridge from Nuevo Leon,” said Abbott. “The effect of this will be the bridge from Nuevo Leon and Texas will return to normal, effective immediately, right now. It will remain that way as long as Nuevo Leon executes this historic agreement.”
BORDER PATROL STOPS RELEASING MIGRANTS TO TOWN THAT CALLED IN ABBOTT BUSES TO D.C.
Abbott announced the truck inspections April 6, days after the Biden administration said it would soon stop immediately expelling illegal immigrants who came across the southern border — as had been the policy since the coronavirus pandemic began two years ago. The inspections were meant to detect people or drugs being smuggled into the U.S., though they duplicated federal inspections.
Troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety were tasked with conducting safety checks on all trucks arriving in roughly two dozen locations up and down the state’s border. Of the 2,685 trucks inspected by Sunday, 646 were placed out of service for “serious safety violations,” including defective brakes, tires, and lighting, CNN reported.
The international bridge that connects Pharr with the Mexican city of Reynosa was the first to see major delays as truckers in Mexico blockaded the northbound entrance to the 3-mile bridge. The truckers protested Abbott’s inspections for adding hours to their travel times. As a result, wait times jumped mid-Tuesday from one hour to more than five hours, according to government data.
“Trucks are facing lengthy delays along the Texas-Mexico border, with wait times at some border crossings exceeding five hours and commercial traffic dropping by as much as 60 percent,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which manages all ports of entry, wrote in a statement. “The longer than average wait times — and the subsequent supply chain disruptions — are unrelated to CBP screening activities and are due to additional and unnecessary inspections being conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) at the order of the Governor of Texas.”
Delays topped 10 hours by late Tuesday as trucks were rerouted to other ports of entry, some hundreds of miles west. The Pharr International Bridge began admitting trucks late Wednesday afternoon, with several trickling through the one open lane to get to CBP’s inspection booths, only to be stopped several hundred feet later by state troopers.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, pleaded with Abbott on Tuesday to stop the inspections, warning that the “misguided program is going to quickly lead to $2.00 lemons” and “$5.00 avocados and worse.” The Pharr bridge is the most popular avenue for the importation of fresh produce in the nation.
“Up to 20,000 truckers cross the border on a normal day. My reports are that each inspection is taking an hour and has created a backlog of thousands of trucks clogging the border. Refrigerated produce is being ruined as trucks run out of fuel after being in line for over a day,” Miller said in a statement shared with the Washington Examiner.
Two House Democrats with districts in South Texas, Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, wrote separate letters to Abbott warning him of the negative implications delays would cause to the supply chain.
“A recent study conducted by Texas A&M found that imported fresh produce from Mexico employs approximately 8,000 Texans and contributes $850 million to our state’s economy,” wrote Gonzalez, whose district includes Pharr. “Your actions have thus far held up $30 million of produce according to the Texas International Produce Association.”
CBP issued a statement late Tuesday defending its own inspections and dubbing Abbott’s efforts “unnecessary.” Over the past week, CBP said, federal port officers in the eastern half of Texas have stopped $17 million worth of drugs being transported into the U.S.
“Your duplicative mechanical inspections have been costly to the local, state, and national economies,” Cuellar wrote in a letter to Abbott. “None of the violations from these inspections involve the smuggling of drugs or people. These inspections have resulted in a significant increase in commercial wait times at ports of entry.”
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CBP has been unable to get trucks out of its ports due to traffic jams prompted by the state’s inspections shortly after leaving the border.
