Texas Governor Greg Abbott has concluded the enhanced inspections of commercial vehicles at his state’s border with Mexico after the effort resulted in trucks waiting for hours and even days to go through border crossings and ultimately brought Mexican leaders to the negotiating table.
Abbott revealed the effort recently in reaction to the Biden regime’s choice to end the Title 42 policy, enacted under President Trump which enabled U.S. Customs and Border Protection representatives to instantly expel illegal border crossers. The governor ordered enhanced inspections of commercial vehicles by state troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The evaluations were ended after Abbott concluded deals with all 4 Governors of the Mexican states bordering Texas on border security. After concluding the last deal; on Friday with Tamaulipas Governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, Abbott stated that he hoped Mexican states would have the ability to slow unlawful migration into the U.S.
“If those expectations are not fulfilled, and we see an increase or even a continuation of the illegal immigration traffic we’re currently seeing, Texas can reinstate the enhanced security measures for vehicles coming across the border,” Abbott said at a press conference.
Chihuahua state Governor Maria Eugenia Campos Galván said her state will execute a $200 million strategy to set up security video cameras and utilize facial recognition software applications, in addition to intelligence-sharing with Texas, to track illegal immigration. The Governor of Nuevo Leon, Samuel Alejandro García Sepúlveda, said that his state would carry out extra security checkpoints, although Nuevo Leon only shares 9 miles of Texas’s 1,200-mile border with Mexico.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said Texas State Troopers did not discover illegal immigrants in the commercial vehicles throughout the enhanced inspections.
Cartels “don’t like troopers stopping them, certainly north of the border, and they certainly don’t like 100% inspections of commercial vehicles on the bridges,” McCraw said. “And once that started, we’ve seen a decreased amount of trafficking across bridges — common sense.”
The shipping delays brought on by the enhanced inspections were criticized by some business leaders in addition to Washington Democrats.
“We are seeing delays that will be felt across the country. There are a half a dozen divisions of trucking [affected],” Texas Trucking Association president John Esparza told the Washington Post.
“There’s the refrigerated segment of trucking, there’s household goods, forestry, fuel tankers, commodities for trade goods — this is about General Motors, Ford and everything coming out of Mexico, our trade partner.”
H/T National Review
