Texas repeals order that caused gridlock
Extra truck inspections are no longer required
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday repealed his traffic-clogging immigration order that backed up commercial trucks at the U.S.-Mexico border, after a week of intensifying backlash and fears of deepening economic losses.
The two-term Republican governor dropped his new rules that required all commercial trucks from Mexico to undergo extra inspections to curb the flow of migrants and drugs and ratcheted up a fight with the Biden administration over immigration policy.
Some truckers reported waiting more than 30 hours to cross. Others blocked one of the world’s busiest trade bridges in protest.
Abbott began the inspections after the Biden administration said pandemic-related restrictions on claiming asylum at the border would be lifted May 23.
He called the inspections a “zero tolerance policy for unsafe vehicles” smuggling migrants. He said Texas would take several steps in response to the end of the asylum restrictions, which is expected to lead to an increase in migrants coming to the border.
State troopers inspected more than 6,000 commercial vehicles over the past week, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Nearly 1 in 4 trucks were pulled off the road for what the agency described as serious viola-tions that included defective tires and brakes.
The agency made no mention of the inspections turning up migrants or drugs.
Abbott, who is up for reelection in November and has made the border his top issue, fully lifted the inspections after reaching agreements with neighboring Mexican states that he said outline new commitments to border security. The last one was signed Friday with the governor of Tamaulipas, who this week said the inspections were overzealous and created havoc.
When Abbott first ordered the inspections, he did not say lifting them was conditional on such arrangements with Mexico. The agreements between Abbott and Mexico’s governors have varied.
Across from Laredo, Nuevo Leon Gov. Samuel García had told Abbott his state would put in place checkpoints and policing. For Chihuahua, Gov. Maru Campos Galván provided a security plan she said was in the “implementation stage” and includes agreements to share intelligence captured by security cameras and other technology. Later Thursday, Abbott also announced a similar agreement with the Mexican governor of Coahulia.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid
Miller, a Republican who urged Abbott to walk back the inspections order, said Thursday one major agricultural company told him that 100 trucks sent to Mexico for deliveries had been unable to come back across because of the congestion.
He questioned what the holdout achieved, and in the case of Abbott’s agreement with Nuevo Leon, said it did not appear substantive.
“They’re just basically going to leave it up in good faith,” Miller said. “There’s no enforcement, no reckoning on that if they don’t.”
Pressure was building on Abbott to retreat as gridlock on the border worsened and frustration mounted. The American Trucking Association called the inspections “wholly flawed, redundant and adding considerable weight on an already strained supply chain.”
“People like me who buy millions of dollars of produce a week are starting to curb their purchases toward other regions of the country,” said Brent Erenwert, CEO of Brothers Produce in Houston, which relies heavily on imports from Mexico.
The U.S.-Mexico border is crucial to the U.S. economy, and roughly 1,200 miles of it is in Texas – more than any other state. The United States last year imported $390.7 billion worth of goods from Mexico, second only to China.
One custom agency based in Mexico, the Association of Customs Agents of Reynosa, on Thursday put the losses at the Pharr-Reynosa bridge at $7 million a day.
COVID-related factory shutdowns in China and the rocketing cost of shipping goods across the Pacific Ocean have had many companies looking to Mexico, where there’s no ocean to cross and there’s relief from the political and trade disputes between Washington and Beijing.
“A lot of companies, right now, they’re looking at Mexico as a way to bypass ocean dependency,” said Bindiya Vakil, CEO of the supply chain consultancy Resilnc, prior to the recent repeal. “If I’m one of those companies, I’m looking at this new regulation on the Texas border and I’m really concerned because this means additional delays, and that was supposed to be my solution – to go to Mexico and avoid the ocean altogether.’’
Abbott has also chartered buses to Washington, D.C., for migrants who wanted to go. The first dropoffs happened Wednesday, drawing criticism from the Biden administration. On Thursday, U.S. Customs and Border Protections Commissioner Chris Magnus said Texas was moving migrants without “adequately coordinating” with the federal government.
“If (President Joe Biden’s) not going to come to the border, we’re going to take the border to him,” Abbott said.