Glad to see the shipping delays and loss of product were all worth it.

About two weeks ago, I did a story on the extra border inspections going down at the Texas border thanks to Governor Greg Abbott. I don't know why this irked me so much, but I know how valuable time is to the trucking industry. It seemed so messed up to me that truckers had to go through two inspections at the Texas border. First by the US Customs and Border Protection, then one by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

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We all know why Abbott did this, he was mad that President Biden was ending Title 42. Which was an immigration policy during Covid to expedite the removal of migrants. I guess Governor Abbott wasn't trusting the United States officers at the border, but his folks at the Texas Department of Public Safety were going to show us all the drugs being smuggled in by these truckers. Guess how much we had?

via GIPHY

Not one damn arrest for contraband. Nothing, literally NOTHING. What a waste of these trucker's time that are not being compensated for this. Oh don't worry though we got the real crime at the border with these extra inspections. 345 were cited for underinflated tires, broken turn signals and oil leaks. Thank god we made these guys wait almost half a day, a full day, or even several days waiting to get through with these extra inspections.

It is estimated that 60 to 70 million dollars worth of goods cross the Texas border each day. No word on how much was lost over the eight days of the extra inspections. Tomatoes, onions, avocados, and jalapenos were thrown out of several shipments since the went bad waiting at the border.

Bret Erickson, former president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association and a current executive with Little Bear Produce, a Texas produce grower and distributor said, when you've got a politician go out and make a decision like Gov. Abbott did, it's like a slap in the face.”

“Anytime that we are losing a day of business, there's always a lasting impact,” he added. “Every day that goes by that we haven't been able to receive these loads, those are sales dollars that we will not get back. Those are dollars that are not going to be returned to our employees' paychecks, because they didn't work.”

Many of these distributors also have to pay fines if they don't meet their deadlines to stores on time. In my opinion, this was a big waste of time, but in a Friday news conference, Abbott and Texas Department of Public Safety say otherwise.

The reason troopers hadn’t found any drugs or migrants in commercial trucks is because drug cartels “don’t like troopers stopping them, certainly north of the border, and they certainly don’t like 100% inspections of commercial vehicles on the bridges. And once that started, we’ve seen a decreased amount of trafficking across bridges — common sense.”

You believe what you want in this instance. The extra inspections stopped all contraband trafficking into Texas or US Customs did their job before reaching the Texas inspections.

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