'It’s going to affect all of us': Frustration grows as trucks block Texas-Mexico border

One of the busiest trade ports on the U.S.-Mexico border remained closed Tuesday as frustration and protests mounted over new orders by Gov. Greg Abbott requiring extra inspections of commercial trucks as part of the Republican’s sprawling border security operation.

Since Monday, Mexican truckers have blocked the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in protest of Abbott directing Texas Department of Public Safety troopers last week to pull over and inspect trucks coming into Texas from Mexico. The bridge is the largest land port for produce entering the U.S.

Unusually long backups — some lasting 12 hours or longer — have also been reported elsewhere along Texas' roughly 1,200-mile border in the early rollout of an initiative that Abbott says is needed to curb human trafficking and the flow of drugs. But critics question how the inspections are meeting that objective, while business owners and experts say the impact is already being felt and warned that U.S. grocery shoppers could notice shortages as soon as later this week.

More: Gov. Abbott said migrants will bused to Washington. Then his office clarified his remarks.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's border inspection policy dubbed 'crisis'

Frustration is also spreading to members of Abbott's own party: Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, called the inspections a “catastrophic policy” that is forcing some trucks to reroute hundreds of miles to Arizona.

An estimated 3,000 trucks would cross the Pharr border bridge on a normal day, according to the National Freight Transportation Chamber.

“I do describe it as a crisis, because this is not the normal way of doing business,” said Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez, whose county includes the bridge in Pharr. “You’re talking about billions of dollars. When you stop that process, I mean, there are many, many, many, many people that are affected.”

The shutdowns and slowdowns have set off some of widest backlash to date of Abbott’s multibillion-dollar border operation, which the two-term governor has made the cornerstone of his administration. Texas already has thousands of state troopers and National Guard members on the border and has converted prisons into jails for migrants arrested on state trespassing charges.

Abbott warned last week that inspections would “dramatically slow” border traffic, but he hasn't addressed the backups or port shutdowns since then. His office didn't reply to a message seeking comment left Tuesday.

Beto O'Rourke calls out Gov. Abbott on border inspection policy

The disruptions at some of the world's busiest international trade ports could pose economic and political threats to Abbott, who is seeking a third term in November. Democrat Beto O'Rourke, the former presidential candidate who is running against Abbott for governor, said during a stop in Pharr on Tuesday that the inspections were doing nothing to halt the flow of migrants and were worsening supply chain issues.

More: Greg Abbott campaign promises 'knock-out, drag-out fight' in race against Beto O'Rourke

He was joined by Joe Arevalo, owner of Keystone Cold, a cold-storage warehouse on the border. “We’re living through a nightmare, and we’re already suffering through a very delicate supply chain from the pandemic and to try to regrow the business," Arevalo said.

The additional inspections are conducted by the DPS, which said that as of Monday, it had inspected more than 3,400 commercial vehicles and placed more than 800 “out of service” for violations that included defective brakes, tires and lighting. It made no mention of whether the truck inspections had turned up migrants or drugs.

Mexican trucking companies accused Abbott of collapsing cross-border trade through his order, and Mexico’s assistant secretary of commerce wrote a letter to Abbott requesting a solution.

Opponent says Gov. Abott's order will hurt supply chain, cost businesses 'millions of dollars a day'

The order's impact is spreading beyond Texas: U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials confirmed Tuesday that there was another blockade at the Mexican customs facility at the Santa Teresa port of entry in southern New Mexico, not far from El Paso. Those protests are misguided since New Mexico has nothing to do with Texas' inspection policies, said Jerry Pacheco, executive director of the International Business Accelerator in El Paso and president of the Border Industrial Association.

He said the protests were costing businesses millions of dollars a day.

“Everybody down here is on a just-in-time inventory system,” Pacheco said. “It’s going to affect all of us, all of us in the United States. Your car parts are going to be delivered late, your computer — if you ordered a Dell or HP tablet, those are going to be disrupted."

Ed Anderson, a professor at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, compared the disruptions to those caused by February's trucker blockade in Canada that forced auto plants on both sides of the border to shut down or scale back production. During that protest, trucks looking for other entries to cross into the U.S. wound up causing congesting at other bridges, a scenario that Anderson said might now be repeated on the southern border.

Anderson said consumers would likely begin noticing the effects by the end of this week, if not sooner.

“Either prices are going to spike or shelves are going to be low," he said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Mexican truckers block key Texas border crossings in protest of Abbott