US-Mexico border gridlock to ease as Texas ending extra checks | US-Mexico Border News
Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered more inspections of the trucks, leading to wait times and 30-hour protests.
Texas will stop implementing check more trucks to the United States’ southern border with Mexico, Governor Greg Abbott said, after the US state reached an agreement with Mexico’s neighbors.
The agreement calls on the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas to step up security efforts focused on illegal border crossings and drug trafficking, Abbott and Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca said Friday in a meeting joint press conference.
Last week, Abbott ordered state authorities to conduct “enhanced safety checks” on vehicles traveling from Mexico into Texas to detect people and contraband. .
The move has caused traffic jams, with some truckers reporting wait times of more than 30 hours to cross the border into the US, and sparked protests that closed several commercial crossings in Texas. and New Mexico.
Abbott, a Republican for re-election in November, has been battling the Biden administration over US immigration policy – and the inspections began after the Department of Homeland Security announced that a deadline pandemic regime will be implemented. lifted on May 23.
That policy, called Title 42.
Since the order was issued in March 2020 under President Donald Trump, more than 1.7 million Title 42 evictions have been made.
Abbott has called increased truck inspections a “zero-tolerance policy for unsafe vehicles” smuggling refugees and migrants, and said Texas will take a number of steps to deal with it. the end of restrictions on asylum.
He also has chartered buses carrying refugees and migrants from Texas to Washington, DC, to get Biden’s message out, with a third scheduled to arrive on Friday, according to the governor’s office and news releases.
However, the governor is increasing pressure to end the inspection of trucks from Mexico as the deadlock worsens and frustration grows.
The American Freight Association called the measures “totally flawed, redundant, and puts a significant strain on an already strained supply chain,” while Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, said additional inspections would “quickly lead to $2.00 lemons, $5.00 avocados and worse”.
On Wednesday, the White House also shut down inspections, saying they were unnecessary and had disrupted food and auto supply chains, sending prices up as Inflation has skyrocketed United States.
The U.S.-Mexico border is crucial to the U.S. economy, and most of it is located in Texas — about 1,931 kilometers (1,200 miles) — than any other state. Last year, the US imported $390.7 billion in goods from Mexico, second only to China.
Meanwhile, a delegation of US government officials going to travel to Panama next week to discuss migration, as the Biden administration seeks to dissuade people from heading toward the border when Title 42 ends.
The delegation will include Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, the State Department said on Friday.
