UPDATE (April 15, 2022, 5:20 p.m. ET): Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday repealed his immigration order that required all commercial vehicles from Mexico to undergo extra inspections. The order caused major traffic delays and sparked protests among truck drivers.
Republicans spent the early months of 2022 egging on aimless demonstrations by truck drivers protesting mostly nonexistent Covid restrictions in Canada and the United States. GOP lawmakers saw value in aligning themselves with the protests, which were more about a hodgepodge of right-wing grievances and conspiracy theories than anything else.
Now, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sparked a trucker revolt against policies he recently instituted — and unsurprisingly, conservatives don't seem eager to report on these protesters.
This week, truck drivers blocked commercial lanes connecting Mexico to Texas and New Mexico to protest hourslong delays Abbott created through newly authorized “enhanced” inspections of cargo entering the United States.
Abbott, who’s running for re-election this year, is doing all of this harm in the name of political theater.
The Republican governor announced last week that his state will require nearly all commercial vehicles entering the country through Texas’ southern border to undergo an added layer of inspections even after they pass through customs, a policy many people worried would delay shipments by several hours.
As it turns out, that’s exactly what happened. Some truckers coming to the U.S. from Mexico told the El Paso Times they've experienced more than 10-hour waits thanks to Abbott’s policy.
The new inspections have caused so much dysfunction that U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a statement Tuesday calling them “unnecessary.”
The agency said the delays are “due to additional and unnecessary inspections being conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) at the order of the Governor of Texas.”
As a result, “vehicles have been significantly delayed in exiting the federal inspection plaza, leading to traffic disruptions and critical impacts to an already-strained supply chain,” CBP said.
Really, that statement drives home a fundamental point: Abbott, who’s running for re-election this year, is doing all of this harm in the name of political theater.
He announced the enhanced inspections at the same conference where he said his administration would ship migrants from the Texas border to Washington, D.C. — apparently to stick it to the Biden administration for rescinding a policy allowing the U.S. to deport migrants on public health grounds. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that policy, known as Title 42, is “no longer necessary,” yet Abbott and his fellow anti-immigrant conservatives have pushed for its reinstatement.
At this point, the conservative movement’s sheer hatred for migrants coming from Mexico is probably the only thing protecting Abbott from an intraparty revolt over his truck delays. The GOP is eager to claim the Biden administration’s policies have harmed American businesses and contributed to inflation. But note the hypocrisy: One of their most prominent governors is actively sabotaging the economy in his own state with delays that harm businesses and stand to increase prices.
And Republicans don’t seem to care.
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