His critics make good points, but a risky policy may be the right one.
His critics make good points, but a risky policy may be the right one.
Kinney County, Texas — Last week, Governor Greg Abbott directed Texas Department of Public Safety officers to start augmenting truck inspections at ports of entry with Mexico. This is leading to massive truck backups, as I reported earlier this week from the international bridge at Eagle Pass:
Truck backup at a Texas DPS checkpoint at the border with Mexico. Read more: https://t.co/zjoiXN2JWK pic.twitter.com/aztLqOdk3o
— Carine Hajjar (@carinehajjar2) April 13, 2022
Abbott claims his DPS checks are meant to ensure the mechanical safety of vehicles and to prevent smuggling of human beings and illicit substances. “There may be Texans whose lives were saved” because dangerous vehicles were “taken out of operation” by DPS, he said. “Those dangerous vehicles, with dangerous brakes, could have run into a Texan walking across the road or driving down a road,” the governor said, defending his controversial policy.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board reported that “commercial traffic has dropped 60% at some ports since last week.” Texas agriculture commissioner Sid Miller warned that food prices could rise, saying avocados could hit $5 apiece and lemons $2.
Hour-long backups into Mexico are, indeed, holding up vital commerce between the U.S. and its southern neighbor. Abbott, in turn, is being criticized for a misguided — albeit well-intentioned — attempt at shoring up a desperately fragile border apparatus.
Abbott’s checks are, indeed, economically disruptive and perhaps even redundant. However, after spending the day with south Texas law-enforcement officers, I learned that the governor’s aim is strategic: He’s trying to push the Mexican government to pull its own weight in securing its side of the Rio Grande.
The checks, of course, are repetitive. Today a DPS trooper told me that Customs and Border Protection officers already conduct extremely thorough checks on commercial vehicles. These include visual and X-ray inspections.
Sometimes, however, smugglers do get through in these vehicles. In Uvalde, for instance, smugglers were caught with 48 immigrants hidden in the back of a truck. Smugglers are often reckless drivers. Abbott has said that “the cartels that smuggle illicit contraband and people across our southern border do not care about the condition of the vehicles they send into Texas.” When I spent the day with Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin, he said that smugglers in high-speed chases from law-enforcement officers have “no regard for human life” and often crash and flee without helping their passengers. Uvalde, which is just over 60 miles from the border, experiences many “bailouts,” or high-speed chases of smuggler vehicles.
I spoke with Joe Frank Martinez, sheriff of Val Verde County. He told me that the checks are “probably not necessary” and that “those resources can be better used further into the interior” in order to help monitor the high levels of “human smuggling in commercial motor vehicles.” He’s among many who believe that DPS efforts could be used to strategically position checks on highways leading to major cities.
Indeed, I’ve been told by multiple law-enforcement officers that most migrants smuggled into the country get into getaway cars and commercial trucks after crossing the border. These head into the interior toward communities such as Uvalde, a crossroads of highways leading to larger cities.
Perhaps the biggest criticism of Abbott’s move, however, is that it will have negative economic effects.
The WSJ editorial board asked why the governor is “punishing Americans by obstructing legal commerce.” My fellow NR intern, Arjun Singh, writes that while Abbott is “admirably” trying to “counteract” Biden’s border disaster, “the move is poised to further strain supply chains.”
While Abbott’s move appears to be a shortsighted reaction, it’s actually part of a subtle — and highly effective — strategy to force Mexico to secure its side of the border.
Yesterday, Jim Volcsko, a former Border Patrol agent, told me that in a “quasi-socialist country” like Mexico, only the elites have a say. “The elites own these trucking companies and everything else. If you put pressure on them by stopping their flow of money, they’re in turn going to put pressure on the government, and that money means everything in Mexico.”
“It’s like a chess match,” he said. “Those people are now putting pressure on the Mexican government to do something.”
Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Brad Coe of Kinney County, another border county in south Texas, told me that he previously suggested the truck inspections to Governor Abbott. “I told the governor if you start to check those trucks coming across the border for safety violations and we shut those trucks down, traffic backs up in Mexico and they can’t get their goods into the country.” At the time, he made a prediction: “The Mexican government will come to our table and say, ‘Hey, what do we need to do to get this rectified?’”
Law-enforcement members, from local police departments to state troopers and Border Patrol, have all shared their frustration with the Mexican government’s lax approach to smugglers and illegal immigrants crossing into Texas.
Abbott is trying to force their hand.
And it could be working. Mexican governors across the border are telling Abbott they’re ready to conduct their own vetting. Yesterday CBS reported that Governor Samuel García from Nuevo León, the Mexican state across from Laredo, is working with Abbott:
Nuevo León Gov. Samuel García joined Abbott in Laredo, where backups on the Colombia Solidarity Bridge have stretched for three hours or longer. Garcia said Nuevo León would begin checkpoints to assure Abbott they “would not have any trouble.”
Since striking this agreement, Abbott has lifted inspections at the bridge that connects Laredo and Nuevo León.
“Since Nuevo León has increased its security on its side of the border,” he said, “the Texas Department of Public Safety can return to its previous practice of random searches of vehicles crossing the bridge from Nuevo León.”
Abbott said other inspections will remain in place until his Mexican counterparts comply.
In Laredo, Abbott said he understands “concerns that businesses have trying to move product across the border” but also knows “the frustration of my fellow Texans and my fellow Americans caused by the Biden administration not securing our border.”
Unlike his predecessor, President Biden has taken a softer approach to the Mexican government. Under the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP, known as “Remain in Mexico”), the Trump administration struck a deal whereby asylum seekers would wait in Mexico for their court dates. The Biden administration not only tried to abolish MPP (which was ultimately struck down in courts) but has taken a higher number of asylum seekers. Law enforcement has told me that, for the most part, Mexico refuses to take back non-Mexican and non–Northern Triangle nationals. They also don’t take back most family units. Of the migrants who turn themselves in for asylum, the majority are Venezuelan, Cuban, Haitian, and Colombian.
With little pressure from this administration, Abbott is trying to find ways to keep Mexico accountable. Though his policy is highly disruptive, the governor seems to be making some strides.