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Texas ends truck inspections following agreement with Mexico’s border states

by Will Tubbs

Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News

 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Friday he was ending his order for enhanced security checks of trucks entering his state from Mexico.

Abbott, who faced increasing pressure from truckers to relieve what had become a day-plus process of entering the United States, said that his policy was rendered unnecessary by a series of memoranda of understanding signed between his office and those of the governors of Mexico’s border states with which Texas shares a border.

The process began Thursday when Abbott signed MOUs with the governors of Chihuahua and Coahuila, and it ended Friday when Abbott and Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca signed a similar document.

In all three instances, the Texas governor said the Mexican states would enact heightened security measures that would deter the smuggling of drugs and humans into the U.S. and facilitate the flow of auto traffic. In exchange, Texas would return to its normal method of augmenting the efforts of Border Patrol and Mexico.

“Border governors can achieve results when we work together and put the safety of our constituents first, and I am grateful for the partnership of Governor Cabeza de Vaca as we work to secure our border,” Abbott said in a statement. “With the State of Tamaulipas’ detailed plan to secure the border, the Texas Department of Public Safety can return to its previous strategy of random searches. While President Biden ignores the ongoing crisis at the border, the State of Texas will continue to work with heads of state in Mexico to further strengthen our comprehensive border strategy.”

Abbott has taken numerous steps to secure the Texas-Mexico border and address the steady influx of migrants entering the U.S. even before the end of Title 42, the federal law that heretofore had closed the U.S. border as a protection against the spread of COVID-19.

“In light of Biden ending Title 42, Texas has reached border security agreements w/ ALL neighboring Mexican states,” Abbott tweeted. “We will not tolerate the endless stream of illegal immigrants crossing the border.”

Beyond stopping all trucks for an additional search at the border, Abbott has also ordered Texas officials to offer free transportation for migrants to Washington, D.C.

The truck stop program had not been met with acceptance, though, as blue-collar truckers complained about delays while Democrats attempted to blame Abbott for the nation’s supply chain and inflation woes.

“Abbott is all stunts, no solutions,” Beto O’Rourke, who is representing Democrats in the upcoming Texas gubernatorial election, tweeted Friday. In a separate tweet, O’Rourke said, “Abbott is making us pay the price for his chaos. His inflation, higher prices for groceries, and supply chain problems are hurting the people of Texas.”

According to estimates reported by CNBC, during the week of additional inspections, Texas State troopers inspected 6,000 trucks, but did not uncover any human trafficking victims or drug shipments. They did, however, discover safety violations in about 25% of the trucks stopped.

A failure to find drugs or people in the Texas inspections was potentially caused by a solid rate of success by the U.S. Border Patrol, which stages its own, better-known inspections at the border and also routinely carries out additional enforcement measures.

On Thursday and Friday alone, Border Patrol officers in Texas discovered six large groups of migrants, seized copious amounts of drugs near El Paso, made a $350,000 cocaine bust near Hidalgo, broke up multiple smuggling operations and stash houses, arrested a man wanted for murder, and found a group of migrants traveling with a 4-year-old child and almost $100,000 worth of marijuana.

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