Border coalition blasts Operation Lone Star expansion

In a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Cameron County Judge and Texas Border Coalition Chairman Eddie Trevino JR. and TBC Vice Chairman C. LeRoy Cavazos-Reyna claim that Abbott’s expansion of Operation Lone Star is creating major disruptions to industry and further hampering the supply chain to Texas businesses.

Abbott last week ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to begin conducting safety inspections of commercial vehicles crossing into the state’s land ports-of-entry from Mexico. The order was in response to the Biden administration’s announcement that it was lifting Title 42 — which the Trump administration imposed to immediately turn away migrants and asylum seekers at the U.S. border, ostensibly for public health reasons — in light of “current public health conditions and an increased availability of tools to fight COVID-19.”

“The delays caused by the expansion of inspections at land ports of entry is now a contributor to the supply chain crisis that we are seeing nationwide,” Cavazos-Reyna and Trevino wrote. “This measure is hurting Texans and all of those whose business depends on the trade along the border with Mexico.”

The letter notes that more than $80.4 billion in trade moved through this regional system in 2021 alone, 87 percent of it transported by commercial trucks. These new delays will lead to massive losses of produce in addition to worsening supply-chain challenges and increasing costs for consumers locally and nationally, TBC said.

It will also have a profound negative impact on Texas jobs and local and state economies, and result in losses of revenue at ports-of-entry in border communities, said the organization, which represents a coalition of Texas mayors, city council members, county judges and executives, businesses, corporations and other community leaders.

TBC suggested a better approach would be “to work in partnership with U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to assist in the inspections at the land ports.”

Trevino and Cavazos-Reyna wrote that, while TBC shares the governor’s concerns about criminal activity along the border and recognize border security as “an essentially part of trade circularity,” more effective security measures can be taken through the use of modern technology.

“We welcome dialogue and collaborative efforts with and between our local, state and federal agencies to help find an immediate solution to this issue which is causing major disruptions to multiple industries and generating additional burdens on our supply chain for Texas businesses,” they wrote.