John C.Moritz
Democrat Beto O’Rourke pounced on reports that Gov. Greg Abbott’s inspection policy on all commercial trucks entering Texas from Mexico is causing massive trade backlogs, saying Tuesday the two-year Republican “is killing businesses and the Texas economy.” “.
“It’s going to be very bad for the Texas economy. It’s going to be very bad for the national economy,” O’Rourke said during a news conference at an empty cold store in the border town of Pharr.
The former El Paso congressman, who will run against Abbott in November’s election, was joined by two South Texans, who said their livelihoods have been upended as trucks bringing produce and finished goods into Texas each up Trucks waiting in the rigs for 16 hours awaiting a 45-minute inspection.
Abbott ordered the inspections last week, saying they were necessary to control the flow of illegal immigration and drug smuggling into Texas.
But the checks, conducted by troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety, focus primarily on the roadworthiness of the vehicles, not their cargo. It’s up to federal agents to examine the contents of the trucks, which usually takes place at checkpoints miles from the Rio Grande.
Abbott said at his own news conference in South Texas last week that his latest actions were necessary because of what he described as a failure by President Joe Biden’s administration to control the southern border.
Joe Arevalo, a customs broker who owns the warehouse where O’Rourke hosted his event, said Abbott’s order created “a domino effect of disgruntled drivers” unable to efficiently get goods into U.S. markets that are still struggling with supply chain issues related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are living a nightmare,” said Arevalo.
Polo Chow, whose trucking company brings parts to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing plant in San Antonio, said the security inspections played no role in border security.
“It doesn’t improve security, it doesn’t improve[efforts to control illegal immigrants],” Chow said. “It doesn’t improve the war on drugs.”
More:Texas inspections of cross-border trade are stifling international trade
Meanwhile, Republican Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Sid Miller sent Abbott a letter urging him to end the policy “on behalf of the people of Texas and the United States.”
In an interview with the USA TODAY Network afterwards, Miller was more direct.
“I’ll just say it, this is just political theatre,” he said. “There are 20,000 trucks a day passing through Laredo (pre-guideline). Now we’re going to get about 700 a day. That really backfired. It really made the problem worse.”
O’Rourke, who was targeted by Abbott’s campaign as an “open borders” advocate even before officially entering the 2022 gubernatorial race, used the delays caused by the inspections to take the offensive on a key issue.
The former three-year congressman tried to link the backups to the rising prices and limited supplies shoppers are seeing at retail stores across Texas.
“When you see these trucks lined up for miles all the way to Mexico, you see inflation, what you see is higher grocery prices, and what you see is more supply chain problems,” O’Rourke said. “We call on Greg Abbott to end this policy today.”
In a statement, Abbott campaign spokesman Mark Miner did not address criticisms from O’Rourke, border managers and labor groups about the economic impact of the long delays caused by the inspections.
Instead, Miner tried to blame Biden, a Democrat who backed away from a hard-line approach to immigration during the Republican Trump administration.
“Beto O’Rourke is completely out of touch with the border crisis that his friend President Biden created,” Miner said. “Safety inspections are keeping dangerous vehicles and drivers off Texas roads and preventing cartels from continuing to distribute deadly drugs like fentanyl to Texas communities.”
A look back:Beto O’Rourke launches a bold populist plot against Gov. Greg Abbott to win the governorship of Texas
But the chairman of a trade association that transports agricultural products from Mexico to the United States via Texas said the inspections will strangle cross-border trade and that will likely result in empty grocery store shelves.
“Last night, trucks crossing the Pharr International Bridges were in a mile-long line that took until nearly 2 a.m. this morning to clear the bridge,” said Dante L. Galeazzi, president of the Texas International Produce Association, in one Letter to Abbot on Monday. “Today the line is at a standstill as trucks crawl out of the import area. Many freight forwarders and brokers report hours of inactivity.
“Border security is an important element of this region,” he added, “but so is the trade that employs millions of Texans.”
Clyde Barrow, chair of the political science department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said Abbott’s new policy could backfire in a constituency the Republican governor wants to wrest from Democrats.
“This is having a negative impact on the local economy because, as you know, the Valley economy is very dependent on cross-border transportation,” Barrow said.
He said while many of Abbott’s hard-line border initiatives are well received in communities far north of the Rio Grande, voters in south Texas are often mixed on the issue.
“For me, the paradox has always been that the further you get from the boundary, the more this stuff seems to be held in a positive light,” Barrow said. “The less people know what is actually going on at the border, the more they support this policy. But down here, she’s not generally appreciated very much.
“People are interested in seeing how the Republican Party is going to fare down here because it’s clearly thriving to some extent.”
John C. Moritz reports on Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Reach out to him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.
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