Greg Abbott’s new border security plan raises concerns for local economy

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A day after Governor Greg Abbott announced that his project conducting ‘enhanced security inspections’ of commercial vehicles traveling through Texas could ‘significantly slow’ traffic across the border, local officials and business groups are still trying to assess the potential impact on their economy, which depends trade with Mexico.

“That’s one of the things that concerns McAllen,” said Javier Villalobos, the Republican mayor of this border town. “We will see how it affects us. But of course, if it affects negatively, we are going to be listening to the governor on a daily basis.

On Wednesday, Abbott ordered the Department of Public Safety to immediately begin enhanced inspections of commercial vehicles entering the state from Mexico, a measure aimed at preventing the large number of migrants from entering the state. Abbott took the step as federal authorities prepared to welcome thousands more migrants at the border in May, when the Biden administration ended a pandemic-era emergency order that allowed officers to immigration to turn back migrants, even those seeking asylum.

Without that order, federal officials say they could be overwhelmed by the large number of migrants expected at the border this summer.

Abbott targets commercial vehicles because he says they are used by drug cartels to smuggle migrants and drugs through ports of entry. He said DPS soldiers would conduct a heightened inspection of commercial trucks “as they pass through international ports of entry.”

But it’s unclear how the directive will work. Federal authorities already inspect commercial trucks as they pass ports of entry and state troopers would have no authority in federal jurisdictions. Soldiers may conduct further inspections after trucks pass federal checkpoints, as they have done in the past and continue to do in some areas like Laredo. But increased inspections there could cause significant delays in the flow of northbound traffic.

DPS Director Steve McCraw said Wednesday that inspections will not be conducted on federal property or international bridges, but drivers will be repeatedly warned that they should stop for an inspection.

State authorities could also choose to set up checkpoints for commercial trucks further inland to avoid a bottleneck at ports. But it would allow would-be smugglers to disperse and find other ways to move their cargo once they pass through the port of entry.

DPS spokesman Travis Considine said Thursday the agency could not provide further details for security reasons.

Almost $442 billion of trade passed through Texas ports of entry in 2021, according to the Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. Abbott’s new guidance raises concerns for truckers and others in the logistics industry who rely on this trade.

Jerry Maldonado, president of the Laredo Motor Carriers Association, said his group is monitoring the impact and will stay in touch with state officials to limit damage to the trucking industry.

Laredo is the premier inland port along the US-Mexico border and relies heavily on truck crossings for its economy. The city has 656 trucking and transportation companies, according to the Laredo Economic Development Corporation.

Maldonado said any delays would hurt individual truckers.

“Will it affect us? Yes,” he said. “We believe this will add more to our current delays than we already have.”

Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz said through a spokesperson that he was awaiting more details on Abbott’s plan before making public comments.

But while local officials wait to see the directive’s impact, Mexican-American experts warn it could lead to catastrophic results rippling through the rest of the country’s already lagging economy.

“The governor is underestimating how long it takes to inspect a single truck,” said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

Doing a full inspection of a truck can take hours to unload and reload, he said. And with thousands of trucks crossing the border every day, this could cause significant delays in the movement of goods and goods.

“You will affect many of these trucks and trucking companies that expect to move their goods at a certain point, at a certain time and under certain conditions,” Payan said. “This can only add to the already difficult conditions in which businesses are already operating due to the pandemic. It certainly won’t make things better, it will only make things worse. »

He criticized the approach of using soldiers to inspect trucks that had already been cleared by federal inspectors as duplicative and ineffective and said Abbott was “playing politics” to activate his base during an election year.

A better approach, Payan said, would be to work in conjunction with Department of Homeland Security officers to assist with port-of-entry inspections and reduce duplication.

In McAllen, Villalobos said he is still waiting to see how things go and is staying in touch with Abbott, who has been tending to his town’s needs as the number of migrants at the border increases. But he remains worried about the potential economic impact on his region.

“My main concern is right off the bat, what’s going to happen if it gets clogged?” he said. “We’re going to start losing jobs, start losing – hopefully not businesses. This is something of great concern. »

Disclosure: Rice University and Texas A&M International University have financially supported The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations, and sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the journalism of the Tribune. Find a full list here.

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