AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott announced the end of mandatory inspections of all commercial trucks entering Texas from Mexico after getting Mexican governors from four states to accede to his demands that they significantly boost border security.
State troopers will stop inspecting all incoming trucks entering the country following nine days of mandatory safety checks of all tractor-trailers that led to major delays and drew criticism from agricultural and business interests.
The declaration is significant, as it represents Abbott effectively bypassing the federal government to make his own deals with foreign officials, while the Biden administration takes a more passive approach to getting Mexico to do more at the border as the crisis heads into a second year unabated.
“Texas has now entered into border security enhancement agreements with Mexican governors of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Nuevo Leon,” Abbott said during a press conference in Weslaco, Texas. “I understand the concern that businesses have about trying to move products across the bridge, but I also know the anger that Texans face and have that’s caused by Joe Biden not securing the border. Texas will not tolerate an endless stream of illegal immigrants crossing the border, and we will increase our border security in light of President Biden’s decision to eliminate Title 42 expulsions.”
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Abbott announced the truck inspections April 6, days after the Biden administration said it would stop immediately expelling illegal immigrants who came across the southern border, a policy enacted when the coronavirus pandemic began two years ago. The inspections were meant to detect people or drugs being smuggled into the United States, 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. Abbott said Friday that 25% of trucks were found to be in violation of U.S. safety laws.
But the inspections had a significant impact on port-of-entry operations, preventing thousands of trucks from entering the U.S. Delays topped 10 hours by Tuesday as trucks were rerouted to other ports of entry, some hundreds of miles west, prompting criticism from lawmakers, including Republicans.
Two House Democrats with districts in South Texas, Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, wrote separate letters to Abbott warning him of the problems delays would cause with supply chains.
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Abbott held to the inspections, only rescinding the first following a deal with the governor of Nuevo Leon on Wednesday. On Thursday, governors from Coahuila and Chihuahua also signed agreements with Texas, vowing to better secure the Mexican side of the border to prevent illegal immigration into the U.S. and the transportation of people and goods in vehicles. The Friday signing with Tamaulipas was the fourth and final agreement.
