Cross-border truck drivers are once again facing hourslong waits at a the Ysleta-Zaragoza International Bridge in El Paso, Texas.
The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) renewed controversial state-run safety inspections Saturday, stopping and inspecting all commercial vehicles arriving from Mexico.
“This operation may expand to other El Paso [port of entry] cargo facilities and will affect wait times and the flow of commercial vehicles making entry into the U.S.,” Fernando Thome, assistant director of field operations for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in El Paso, said in an email to the trade community. “The duration of these enhanced inspections by DPS is unknown.”
Cargo truck wait times at the Ysleta-Zaragoza bridge at 3:30 p.m. Monday were over 8 hours in the general commercial lanes and for vehicles permitted for the Free and Secure Trade program lanes. Normal wait times are usually about 45 minutes or less to cross the bridge.
“The Texas DPS is conducting enhanced commercial motor vehicle safety inspections at the Bridge of the Americas and the Ysleta-Zaragoza International Bridge Ports of Entry as those vehicles cross into Texas,” Sheridan Nolen, a DPS spokeswoman told FreightWaves in an email. Nolen did not provide a reason for the DPS inspections or how long they will last.
DPS Director Steven McCraw said in a statement to the El Paso Times last year the safety inspections were aimed at stopping cartels from smuggling drugs across the border.
DPS initiated similar inspections in El Paso as well as at the Del Rio border crossing in South Texas and the Marcelino Serna port of entry in Tornillo, Texas, in September and October of last year and in Brownsville and Laredo, Texas, in 2022.
Officials for Canacar, Mexico’s national freight chamber of commerce, said the Texas DPS safety inspections in 2023 in El Paso stranded about 19,000 trucks at the Mexican border that were carrying $1.9 billion in goods destined for the U.S.
The border checkpoints launched by the DPS are in addition to commercial truck inspections conducted by Mexican customs, CBP and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
U.S. officials have criticized the DPS inspections as unnecessary.
“It’s all show because [DPS] cannot open the trucks,” U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, told Border Report. “They can only check for brakes. They can only check for windshield wipers and stuff. They cannot open the cargo trailers.”
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