Update: 5pm ET – Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) slightly relaxed his new border policy Wednesday afternoon and ordered state police to return to the old practice of conducting random vehicle checks from the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.
The 8-mile Nuevo Leon border shared by Texas includes bridges for international trade crossings.
“The result is that the bridge from Nuevo Leone and Texas will return to normal today,” Abbott said at a news conference, noting that Nuevo Leon officials have agreed to strengthen border security on their part. .
There are 12 more trade crossings between Mexico and the United States that are still strictly restricted by Abbott. According to the Texas Tribune.
Abbott cited his policies in response to the Biden administration’s decision to end the Trump-era mandate that requires migrants to stay in Mexico until their asylum applications are considered.
“If you want relief from a closed border, you have to call President Biden,” the abbot said at a news conference.
A new truck inspection policy from Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) is causing “significant delays in food and transportation supply chains,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday, criticizing the new regulation.
Last week, Abbott ordered Texas state police to begin inspecting commercial supplies across the border from Mexico, even though federal inspections already exist. He and other prominent Republicans claim without evidence that the southern border is filled with drugs and human traffickers, in what they call President Joe Biden’s “open border policy”.
But Abbott’s new policies are “unnecessary and redundant,” Psaki said in a statement.
The long line of commercial trucks stopped at the border this week, some half a day, dropping lots of fresh fruit and vegetables on truck beds during the year when the United States takes most of the traffic. import. Its product From Mexico. Drivers are protesting regulations imposing blockades on international bridges. According to local media.
Psaki said the new inspection “delays production, affects jobs and raises prices for families in Texas and across the country.”
“Continuous flow of legitimate exchanges and travel e [Customs and Border Protection’s] “The ability to do things shouldn’t be hindered,” he said.
Commercial groups and a bipartisan group of government officials criticized Abbott’s decision, including Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.
In an open letter to Abbott, Miller called the governor’s “wrong policies” as an example of a “political theater” that would put too much stress on already tight supply chains.
“Your inspection protocol does not stop illegal immigration,” Miller said in writing. “It prevents food from getting on grocery store shelves and often causes food to rot on trucks, many of which belong to Texas and other American companies.”
Dante Gala ე i, President of the Texas International Products Association, told The New York Times that the situation on the southern border is “at crisis level”.
“We’re seeing delays across the country,” said John Esparza, president of the Texas Truck Association. He told the Washington Post.
“There are half a dozen truck divisions [affected]. “There’s a segment of chilled trucks, there’s household appliances, woods, fuel tankers, freight for commercial goods – it applies to General Motors, Ford and everything coming out of Mexico, our partner in business, ”he told Esparza.
Source: Huffpost
