Texas governor Greg Abbott has ended enhanced inspections of commercial vehicles at his state’s border with Mexico, after the initiative caused trucks to wait for hours or even days to go through border crossings.
Abbott announced the initiative last week in response to the Biden administration’s decision to end the Title 42 policy, which allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to immediately expel illegal border crossers. The governor ordered enhanced inspections of commercial vehicles by state troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The inspections were ended after Abbott concluded deals with all four governors of the Mexican states bordering Texas on border security. After concluding the final deal on Friday with Tamaulipas governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, Abbott said that he hoped Mexican states would be able to slow illegal 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 implement a $200 million plan to install security cameras and use facial recognition software, as well as intelligence-sharing with Texas, to track migration. The governor of Nuevo Leon, Samuel Alejandro García Sepúlveda, said his state would implement additional security checkpoints, although Nuevo Leon only shares nine miles of Texas’s 1,200-mile border with Mexico.
Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw said troopers did not find migrants in commercial vehicles during 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 delays caused by the enhanced inspections were criticized by business owners.
“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.”