Billions at stake as reassignments at border put squeeze on business
PHARR, Texas — Luis A. Bazan looks at his port of entry nestled up against the Mexican city of Reynosa and sees a maze of 18-wheelers mostly stuck, waiting and waiting before creeping along the highway that links north and south at a snail’s pace.
Many are filled with perishable produce. Where he once saw opportunity, Bazan now sees trouble.
Pharr, a small city of about 80,000 people, usually thrives on its border crossing — fresh Mexican produce — many kinds of peppers, including jalapenos — mangos, avocados and more are bound for the north. The crossing here handles more produce than anywhere else along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But that record trade has come to a slow crawl, hit hard by the loss of at least 60 of its customs officials who have been diverted to other duties by the Trump administration. “What are we doing?” said Bazan, 44, the port director of the privately owned international bridge. “At the end of the day, if we don’t have enough CBP agents, we’re screwed. Opportunity is staring right at us and we’re focused on slowing down, not increasing, trade.”
Bazan is referring to the reassignment of more than 730 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers from international bridges to help deal with the flow of mostly Central American migrants.
The Trump administration says it’s a crisis: More than 100,000 mi
grants crossed the border in April, with many voluntarily turning themselves in to authorities to seek asylum. It was the biggest monthly apprehension total since 2007.
Bazan and other business leaders and economists say the reassignment of customs workers and the slowdowns when crossing the border are now taking their toll on business. One study says wait times at international crossings are almost a third longer and billions of dollars in trade is at stake.
Among those reassigned to handle the heavy flow of migrants are the CBP agents who assist Border Patrol agents in processing migrants, even changing diapers and making sandwiches. Some quietly confess they even donate clothes and toys from their own families.
And an estimated 4,300 active duty and National Guard soldiers have since last October have been erecting border barriers, putting concertina wire across existing fences, providing transportation services and doing other duties to support the Border Patrol. The troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties.
Additionally, last week, Transportation Security Administration announced plans to send hundreds of workers to the southern border to reinforce staffing, just as the hectic summer travel season begins.
The latest move only bolstered criticism from skeptical business leaders along the border, including Bazan and Gerald Schwebel, executive vice president of IBC bank in Laredo.
“Today it’s TSA resources. Who’s next?” Schwebel said. “If you come to the border you will find personnel from so many different federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Who’s in charge? … Some want a wall. Some want more people. Some want more equipment. … Stop talking about the border as if we were a different planet from a different galaxy,” he said.
Schwebel urged Washington and Austin to provide “real solutions” like addressing the need for more immigration judges, not more troops, to address the growing backlog of asylumseekers. .
In a recent visit to McAllen, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the Pentagon is committed to keeping the troops on the border at least through September, but insisted their mission “will not be indefinite.” The Pentagon is also transferring $1.5 billion from defense projects, including $604 million originally intended for use in support of security forces in Afghanistan, to help finance construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall.
Meanwhile, the CBP agents and other federal resources are being used to patrol some of the already safest communities across the country — the U.S. border cities.
Every week, Bazan sits on a conference call with CBP agents to coordinate activities, a reflection of the close ties he has with federal agencies that control the border. But lately, he said, “I don’t think they even know what’s going on.
The orders are coming from Washington. This is not panning out for them, or for us. There’s frustration all around. I ask them, what do we have to do to get you back? They just shrug their shoulders. It’s out of their hands.”
The reassignment of agents has created uncertainty and has impacted not just the region, but the whole country economically.
A study by the Wacobased Perryman Group calculated that wait times at the border are about 30 percent longer. Projections show the wait times could cost the state of Texas, which shares about half of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, more than $32 billion in gross domestic product in just over three months. More than 292,000 jobs are also at stake, according to the study.
At a national level, the study predicts about $69 billion in gross domestic product at risk, with utilities, manufacturing, transportation, wholesale trade and produce taking the biggest hits.
“The message is that the border may seem a long way from you if you’re in Ohio, Michigan, or even Dallas, but it affects everyone in a fundamental way — your wallet,” said Ron Perryman, president and CEO of the Perryman Group. “Our economies are so integrated.”