Commercial truck traffic from the Mexican state of Chihuahua to Texas will return to normal immediately after both sides reached an agreement on border security, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Thursday.
The state of Chihuahua provided a plan to secure the border that will allow Texas authorities to cease enhanced inspections that have led to backups of trucks from Chihuahua over the past week, Abbott said during a joint press conference with Maria Eugenia Campos Galvan, the governor of that state.
“Texas and Chihuahua now have agreed to both secure the border as well to get commercial vehicles moving through the ports,” Abbott said.
Abbott, a Republican running for reelection in November, ordered the state’s Department of Public Safety last week to conduct “enhanced safety inspections” of vehicles as they cross from Mexico into Texas in order to uncover smuggling of people and contraband.
The inspections were part of a broader effort to deter illegal immigration that included the busing of migrants to Washington and aimed to counter what Abbott called the “open borders” policies of Democratic President Joe Biden.
Mexican truck drivers blockaded bridges at the U.S. border earlier in the week to protest the delays, which some drivers said caused waits that spanned more than half a day.
Abbott on Wednesday said that his state would cease enhanced inspections from the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon after a separate border security agreement with that state’s governor.
The stepped-up inspections will continue at other parts of the border with Mexico until agreements with those states have been reached, Abbott said.