AUSTIN, Texas — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to begin inspecting commercial trucks after they have passed through federal customs checkpoints, the state agency announced Tuesday.
The state troopers’ inspections of commercial vehicles began earlier Tuesday. Inspections will be conducted at random, and the DPS has not disclosed how broadly it has rolled out the inspections, but the move has the potential to disrupt the U.S. supply chain amid the holiday season and fourth quarter further.
“We are committed to enforcing compliance with safety standards and one of our department’s primary functions is to ensure Texas roadways are safe for all Texans and visitors to our great state,” said Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw in a statement. “For security reasons the department does not discuss operational specifics, but we hope that frequent enhanced commercial vehicle safety inspections will help deter cartel smuggling activity along our southern border while increasing the safety of our roadways.”
Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment about what prompted the sudden return to inspections. However, over the past few days, the border city of El Paso has seen extremely high numbers of immigrants illegally crossing the border between the ports of entry. On Monday, one group of 1,000 people streamed across the border and surrendered to Border Patrol agents.
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These new inspections mark the third time since April that Abbott has ordered state troopers to carry out inspections of trucks. This spring, Abbott ordered the DPS to inspect trucks entering the state from Mexico unless the four Mexican states across from Texas agreed to beef up security as cartels smuggled immigrants to the United States.
Abbott first began 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.
One international bridge that connects Pharr with the Mexican city of Reynosa was the first to see major delays as truckers in Mexico intentionally blockaded the northbound entrance to the three-mile bridge in protest of how Abbott’s inspections added hours to their travel times.
“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 at the time. “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.”
CBP was unable to get trucks out of its ports due to traffic jams prompted by the state’s inspections just past that area.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, had pleaded with Abbott to stop the inspections and warned that the “misguided program is going to quickly lead to $2.00 lemons” and “$5.00 avocados and worse.”
“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.”
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“Your duplicative mechanical inspections have been costly to the local, state, and national economies,” Cuellar wrote in his 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.”
