Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott is restarting truck inspections at the Texas-Mexico border, stopping trucks after they have passed through customs, a practice that was rebuked as causing supply chain and inflation issues.
"We are committed to enforcing compliance with safety standards and one of our department's primary functions is to ensure Texas roadways are safe for all Texans and visitors to our great state," Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw said in a statement. "Cartels do not care about the condition of the vehicles they send into Texas any more than they do about the human lives they cram into tractor-trailers or those lost to a fentanyl overdose.
"For security reasons the department does not discuss operational specifics, but we hope that frequent enhanced commercial vehicle safety inspections will help deter cartel smuggling activity along our southern border while increasing the safety of our roadways."
The directive for Texas DPS inspections came amid Abbott's latest push to further augment his Texas border security measures under Operation Lone Star "amid the Biden administration's ongoing failure to secure the border," the governor wrote in a news release Tuesday.
"Until Congress acts or the Biden administration does its constitutionally required job, Texas Guardsmen and Troopers must bear the burden of securing the border," Abbott wrote in a letter to McCraw and Texas Military Department Adjutant Gen. Thomas Suelzer. "You must continue to keep Texans and Americans safe and protect against an invasion of the southern border.
"I order you to use all resources and tools available to repel immigrants from attempting to cross illegally, arrest those who cross illegally and return them to the border, and arrest criminals who violate Texas law."
The move comes amid a flood of migrants across the border into Texas as Title 42 COVID-19 pandemic turnaways are set to expire.
Abbott first began the supplemental truck inspections April 6 after the Biden administration first started talking about ending Title 42 expulsions, but he faced opposition amid supply chain and inflation woes, particularly with vegetables coming across the border from Mexico.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, asked Abbott to stop the inspections saying the "misguided program is going to quickly lead to $2.00 lemons" and "$5.00 avocados and worse," the Washington Examiner reported.
"Up to 20,000 truckers cross the border on a normal day," Miller said in a statement shared with the Examiner. "My reports are that each inspection is taking an hour and has created a backlog of thousands of trucks clogging the border. Refrigerated produce is being ruined as trucks run out of fuel after being in line for over a day."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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