Texas will increase checkpoints for trucks crossing from Mexico after migrant smuggling deaths

by Patrick Svitek, Texas Tribune


Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that Texas will add new checkpoints for trucks entering the state from Mexico after after over 50 migrants died in connection with an abandoned tractor-trailer found in San Antonio.

The Department of Public Safety “will create and implement a checkpoint strategy beginning immediately where they will begin targeting trucks like the one that was used where these people perished,” Abbott said during a news conference in Eagle Pass.

DPS directer Steve McCraw suggested the checkpoints would be along "smuggling corridors" that connect ports of entry from Mexico to major Texas cities like San Antonio and Houston. Abbott declined to say where exactly the additional checkpoints will be, saying the state wanted to “surprise the cartels and the smugglers.”

Additional details were unclear, including how different the new checkpoints would be from the expanded commercial vehicle inspections that Abbott ordered in April, snarling trade for days along the border and costing the state $4.2 billion by one estimate. He eventually ended that policy as Mexican governors made commitments to better secure their side of the border.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/29/greg-abbott-texas-migrant-deaths-checkpoints/