Will Gov. Greg Abbott pay a political price for ordering truck inspections at the border?

AUSTIN, Texas – The backlash to Gov. Greg Abbott’s order imposing extra inspection requirements on commercial vehicles entering Texas from Mexico was swift and ubiquitous.

As trucks lined up on bridges at the state’s southern border for hours at a time, White House officials, business and trade group leaders, and officeholders from both parties urged the governor to rescind his order, issued in the name of border security.

But Abbott argued that threatening to disrupt the nation’s supply chain was intentional, a means of turning up the heat on the governors of Mexican states bordering Texas to sign agreements pledging to impose security measures on their side of the border in exchange for the Texas Department of Public Safety easing inspections in those areas.

“There is a sense of urgency now to reach deals that did not exist before,” Abbott said Thursday, speaking at a press event with Chihuahua Gov. Maria Eugenia "Maru" Campos.

By Friday, Abbott had reached security agreements with the governors of all four Mexican states bordering Texas, ending the inspection program nine days after it began.

But the move has opened the door to attacks from Democratic rival Beto O’Rourke and other political opponents, who have accused the governor of playing politics with people’s livelihoods and threatening trading partners in Mexico.

“This was a manufactured stunt,” O’Rourke said Friday, speaking to reporters in El Paso. “This was a problem that Greg Abbott created to score political points.”

More: Beto O’Rourke: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is 'causing chaos on the border'

No drugs, migrants detected

When Abbott announced on April 6 his intention to order state troopers to inspect all commercial vehicle traffic entering Texas from Mexico, he said the Biden administration had forced his hand by choosing to end the Trump-era policy of expelling asylum-seekers before they can make a case for staying in the country legally.

At the time, he made no mention of exerting pressure on Mexican officials to enhance their own security measures.

Instead, he emphasized that the goal of the inspections – and a separate effort to voluntarily bus migrants from Texas to Washington – was to “curtail the flow of drug cartel smuggling of migrants and drugs.”

More: Abbott says he's busing migrants to Washington once Biden ends border policy

But Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that no human trafficking or drug smuggling had been detected as a result of the extra vehicle inspections.

The inspections were limited to a review of potential violations of state and federal safety laws and occur once vehicles reach Texas soil – after they have cleared federal Customs and Border Protection checkpoints, which include X-ray scans and drug-sniffing dogs. 

"It was no surprise that during the time 100% of inspections were taking place, that there was nothing found of cartels trying to get things across the border at that time," Abbott said, adding that the threat of the inspections served as a deterrent.

While the inspections did not turn up cartel activity, their impact on traffic at the border and the state's economy was immediate.

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Economic impact

There were massive delays at international bridges, and businesses in Texas and beyond suffered millions of dollars in economic damage. Waco-based economist Ray Perryman estimates Texas lost about $470 million a day, according to NPR. He based the estimate on research his firm, the Perryman Group, had done on previous border slowdowns.

Trade association representatives, business owners and leaders from communities along the border urged Abbott to modify the order.

“This is destroying our business and the reputation of Texas,” Dante Galeazzi, president of the Texas International Produce Association, said in a letter to Abbott. He later told Bloomberg that grocery store shelves in some parts of the country would start running out of certain perishable goods soon.

American Trucking Association President and CEO Chris Spear said, "Gov. Abbott is directly responsible for applying these new senseless inspections on our industry as well as the adverse impact they are having on the economy and hardworking Americans, including truckers."

Republican Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller also urged Abbott to end the inspections, calling it "political theater." 

"There's 20,000 trucks a day coming through Laredo" before the policy, Miller told the Paste BN Network. "Now, we're going to get about 700 a day. This has really backfired on him. It's really compounded the problem."

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Appealing to the base

By Wednesday, one week after announcing the policy, Abbott was looking to reverse course. He said he met with the governor of Nuevo León, who agreed to enhance security enforcement in exchange for Texas ending inspections at the bridge that connects the state to Laredo.

Abbott later signed "Memoranda Of Understanding" with Chihuahua, Coahuila and Tamaulipas. The governors of two of the states – Chihuahua and Tamaulipas –said they would continue ongoing border security efforts as part of the agreement.

At each ceremonial signing, Abbott acknowledged that international bridges had become clogged as a result of his policy, but he said that was evidence that his proposal was working as intended.

Natasha Altema McNeely, political science professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said Abbott’s insistence that pushing Mexican mayors to tighten security was his goal from the start could help him recover from what could be considered a miscalculation from a political perspective. 

“Despite the negative impacts that have resulted from Abbott’s actions, he’s trying to get reelected at the end of the day,” she said. “On the surface, his actions seem to be illogical, but there really is a method to the madness. He’s trying to get reelected and to appeal to his base – and it’s working.”

More: Gov. Greg Abbott agrees to ease inspection requirement for trucks at one border crossing

Focusing on border security and challenging the Biden administration are both surefire ways to fire up Republican voters, Altema McNeely said.

A Texas Politics Project Poll from February found that 36% of Republican voters thought border security was the most important issue facing Texas, followed by 22% who said immigration is the most important issue. By contrast, just 1% of Democratic respondents saw border security as the top issue, while 18% said political corruption was the most important issue facing the state.

O'Rourke on offense

Altema McNeely said O’Rourke also can expect to reap political benefits from Abbott’s recent actions. In the week since the governor announced the extra inspections, O’Rourke has come out swinging against the policy.

O’Rourke, who was born and raised in El Paso, said Friday that he sees Abbott’s latest actions on the border as a rallying cry for communities there.

“It is time that we stand up for ourselves,” O’Rourke said. “This is a beautiful, amazing, extraordinary community. We do not deserve these political stunts. We don’t deserve this abuse. We don’t deserve these attacks from Greg Abbott. We deserve so much better. We deserve a governor who is not looking for the next political stunt.

“We are never going to forget what he has done to us, and we will remember that we can do much better. I will make sure that we deliver not stunts but solutions to communities like these.”

O'Rourke also criticized Abbott for what he described as "forcing the hand" of the governors of the Mexican states bordering Texas, calling it a "disrespectful move."

Abbott on Friday said he was prepared to reinstate the extra inspections if the flow of migrants into Texas doesn't slow.

"There is an expectation that there will be a reduction in illegal immigration," Abbott said. "If those expectations are not fulfilled and we see an increase, or even a continuation of the illegal immigration traffic we're currently seeing, Texas can reinstate the enhanced security measures for vehicles coming across the border."