Border agencies, truckers, leaders blast 'unnecessary' increased inspections

Border agencies, truckers, leaders blast 'unnecessary' increased inspections stymying commerce

What began as border crossing delays this weekend turned into a protest Tuesday. Truckers began blocking traffic across the Zaragoza (Ysleta) bridge on Monday, the only way they said they knew how to get attention to their ordeal. Truck drivers also blocked the commercial lanes at the port of entry in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, for part of Tuesday. By Tuesday night, truckers lifted the blockades at both bridges.

Even after the blockades lifted, inspections continued to stymie commercial truck traffic in much of the borderland, with no end in sight. Trucks waited in line for their turn at two inspection bays at the DPS station exiting the Bridge of the Americas. With inspections lasting 20 minutes or more, the line advanced at a crawl.

Looks like Greg Abbott is under fire again for doing something actually good. Let me explain what actually happens at the border with Mexico, from a trucker's point of view. I spent a lot of time in Laredo, TX while driving for Burlington Motor Carriers and Celadon Trucking. Celadon, in particular, bills itself as "the International carrier" based on their freight lines which often spanned North America, from Canada to Mexico.

I never went into Mexico. I went into Canada a few times, but US drivers did not go into Mexico. Why? Safety. Not only are US drivers seen as "unfair" competition in Mexico (and the Federales tend to look away when one is pulled out of their truck and beat up), but theft is rampant and the roads are often so substandard that the trucks themselves are at risk from road damage. So what happens to a Mexico-US load is as follows:

A trucking company in Mexico (or a Mexican Celadon driver in a Mexican truck owned by Celadon) will pick up the load, with Celadon this was usually in a Celadon trailer. The Mexican driver would then deliver the load to Laredo (according to NAFTA, which was in effect then, Mexican or US drivers are legal in both countries within 100 miles of the border). The trailer would be dropped at a Celadon terminal (or the freight would be reloaded on a Celadon trailer in Laredo if a different trailer was used) and be picked up by a US driver to carry it to its destination.

Trips into and out of Canada did not get that sort of treatment. They went directly through customs, as there were no safety issues in Canada for US drivers. I could pick up a load in Laredo from, say, Mexico City going to Toronto and deliver it to the destination.

Any time we picked up a Mexican load, all US drivers were required to thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly, inspect the trailer. We had a form to list any issues, right down to measuring the tire treads on all 8 wheels. All running lights had to be inspected. The entire brake system had to be inspected; even the air bags had to be inspected. Why? Because there have been actual cases of things being removed... things like brakes, air bags, lights, even the inside wheels. Think about that... someone would actually remove the brake mechanisms and air bags, cap off the air lines so it wouldn't be obvious, and bring the trailer back. A US driver could pick up that trailer and take off, and suddenly he is driving a semi with half as many brakes, and none on the back. That's a jack-knife in the making!

Once the trailer is inspected (and often repaired), the driver has to have it weighed to make sure the weight agrees with the Bill of Lading. It doesn't matter if the Bill of Lading says 10,000 pounds (a very, very light load); there have been incidents where a "super-light load" was actually too heavy to haul!

On the way out of Laredo, every time, every US driver is required to inspect the trailer again, as well as the truck, to ensure that there are not illegal aliens hiding on the truck! I mean every single time! A little ways north from Laredo on I-35 there is an immigration inspection stop that every truck must go through. Illegal passengers have been found hiding on top of the cab under the windscreen, under the trailer, on the catwalk behind the truck, on top of the trailer, even underneath the truck. If a US driver is caught with a stowaway, whether he knows it or not, that's jail time... "human trafficking."

In short, the things a US driver has to go through just to protect themselves legally are pretty intense, and it slows down a driver every time they pull a load out of a border town. Similar things happen in El Paso, Brownsville, and all of the other border towns.

What Abbott has done is require more thorough inspections to take some of the risk off US drivers. Of course, these more thorough inspections take more time, and that will create lines... but Abbot has made a deal with the governor of Nuevo Leon, Samuel García, to stop the enhanced inspections in return for Mexican assurances that incidents of the past would be stopped from the Mexican side of the border. Now, to me, that sounds pretty reasonable... take steps to help us prevent illegal activity and we won't have to over-inspect everything.

At a Wednesday news conference afternoon in Laredo, Abbott and Samuel García, governor of Nuevo León, announced that DPS inspections at the Laredo–Colombia Solidarity International Bridge would return to normal "effectively immediately."

García agreed to enhanced border security to prevent unauthorized immigration, including patrols and checkpoints, in Nuevo León.

"I look forward to working with the other governors who have bridges coming into Texas and hopefully we can make similar agreements," Abbott said.

But it seems that isn't good enough for the white House, the companies that care about nothing more than their bottom line, and the Governors of other Mexican provinces. It doesn't seem to matter that the Mexican truckers staged their own protest, blocking the commercial lanes and making things even worse. No, it's all Abbott's fault.

This is just another example of a news story being spun to those who have no idea what US drivers have to go through to get that freight into the US without being in legal trouble. So I figured I would bring it up, along with relevant info, before someone else tried to repeat the "Abbot bad" narrative.

TheRedneck

Thank you for sharing the other half of the story. I get so tired of every single news report being based on biased, partial information trying to convince people there's no need to do their own thinking anymore.

If it's true that truth is the first casualty of war, the US government went to war with its citizens a long time ago.

Thank you.

I guess I never really thought about this aspect. I mean, sure, I knew there were inspections. I just never thought of the legal aspect. Much appreciated.

I find your knowledge on trucking interesting....including your other post on why there is a trucking shortage. I have shared it in many places.

I have a very close friend who holds a PR position with Border Patrol....and he says the media delivers it wrong all of the time. Not some of the time. All of the time. They may quote him, but they pick and chose what they share in their articles and reports....and to him that is delivering it wrong.

thank you for sharing FACTS.

but this also points out the hypocrisy of what calls itself the "main stream media" today

this story where (as you gave us the FACTS) the boarder stations are DOING LEGAL AND NEEDED inspections that SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE ALL THE TIME..

the media IGNORES that the government only budgeted for two bays/station of inspections, doesnt ask where all the money in the budget for such things are going or not funded enough and claim that its "unfair", a protest, or anything else but the truth.

but either ignores or worse PRAISES CA for putting DRACONIAN restrictions on truckers all to please environmental "green energy" nuts , ultra liberal wants, union skullduggery to get higher than justified wages, or combination of them all.

scrounger

a reply to: TheRedneck

It is much the same in the UK trucking industry since Brits have the two fingers salute to the European Union.

Drivers were held at ports for stupid paperwork in a spat with France when the cargo they carried was time sensitive eg fish and veg .

Drivers coming back from Europe had to run a gauntlet of illegal immigrants boarding their trucks any way possible and at the moment there is a ferry dispute with one company P &O ferries sacking 800 UK staff with no notice and replacing them with cheap foreign labor which has not gone well , they are tied up most of the time after failing inspection but some truckers are saying 30 hour waits are the normal !

a reply to: stonerwilliam

I think I may have stumbled onto a bigger issue... seems this is happening a lot, and not just at the Texas border.

I want to put some rails around my front porch this summer (I have to replace the posts anyway, so why not?), so I have been checking lumber prices. Last time I checked in March, lumber had skyrocketed to ridiculous prices again. So I was checking prices and saw a small drop. Then I wondered what the problem was.

Transportation!

Much of our lumber comes from Western Canada, and it seems there's not enough truckers up there still trucking to haul it all. I found several links to lumberyards that were so overstocked with lumber they were having to send people home... they had nothing to do because they couldn't process any more lumber.

The crazy part of that is that lumber companies as a rule don't pay crap for their loads. Sometimes it's not even enough to pay for the fuel. They get their freight hauled one of two ways: as freight to attract lease-purchase drivers (where the truck company makes their money off the drivers leasing the trucks instead of from the freight lines) and as a minor offset in cost when someone is stuck and is looking at either hauling a cheap load or dead-heading (moving unloaded) a long distance.

I'm realizing things have gotten even worse since I quit driving. Looks like we have two choices: do without stuff we really need, or get idiots out of office who are strangling transportation. And that's not just the US... it's everywhere.

Thanks for the info from the other side of the pond.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

The automation of the trucking industry will be very controversial but inevitable. At least no one getting held up at the border.

a reply to: Member3877

The only people talking about automating the trucks are people who have never seen one that isn't passing them on the highway. The physics (you know, science?) says that it will take an astronomical advancement on present technology to be able to power a truck weighing 80,000 pounds across varied terrain for several hundred miles before needing a recharge.

That's one reason the idea is a pipe dream; there are many more.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Looks like this chaos is organised and a world of hurt is coming to the common people , I read about the holdups with the lumber and building supplies now the trains and the fertilizer and the Jag mandates that many rightly gave the middle finger to , as someone pointed out take 2.5 % of the trucks of the road and the supply chain in America falls apart .

During this COVID scam the truckers were treated like crap at some places on this side of the pond with many refused toilet facilities etc and the French were being the French with truckers stopping loads because of paperwork and a million other stupid reasons .

I spent my early years in a truck some weekends helping a family member deliver everything from cattle to diggers and mining equipment , It gave my grandparents a rest from me and I proudly say to people there's not many machines that I cannot work it was good grounding for a young lad traveling all over the country ,. I will tell you my stowaway story on the threads and how it saved a ferry from capsizing like the hearald of free enterprise in Holland but years before