Cross-border operators in Arizona are calling on federal authorities to return customs personnel to their posts at the Nogales-Mariposa port of entry and reopen trade lanes that have been closed for over two weeks.
“These policies that the Department of Homeland Security [is] implementing are severely affecting the way our country should operate on the Southern border with legal trade and legal traffic that should be crossing every single day,” Joshua Rubin, vice president of business development at Javid LLC, told FreightWaves.
Javid is a Nogales, Mexico-based shelter company that helps manufacturers set-up operations in Mexico. Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico, are sister cities along the border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who would normally help process commercial cargo trucks are being shifted to immigration duties to handle the inflow of migrants at Mexico ports of entry.
The result has been a slowing of cargo processing of trucks arriving in Nogales from Mexico, Rubin said.
“What we are trying to express to [federal authorities] is that we’re getting into produce season and we’re getting into the holiday season; we’re getting into the time of year that makes our economic relationship with Mexico … the most lucrative opportunity that we have here in the border community,” Rubin said. “On Monday, I had 18 shipments that I couldn’t get across the border because of the reduction of CBP personnel. I have a broker friend that told me he had 25 shipments that he was not able to get across on Monday, and had to wait another day to cross.”
CBP officials said they have been working to “decompress” the migrant situation along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We remain vigilant and expect to see fluctuations, knowing that smugglers continue to use misinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals,” a CBP spokesperson said in an email to FreightWaves. “CBP is executing our operational plans and working to decompress areas along the Southwest border. We are safely and efficiently vetting and processing migrants to place them in immigration enforcement proceedings consistent with our laws and operational planning efforts.”
CBP’s Tucson Field Office, which includes the Nogales-Mariposa port of entry, has been temporarily supporting the Tucson and Yuma Border Patrol sectors with processing migrants at various facilities, CBP officials said.
The Nogales-Mariposa port of entry has eight commercial vehicle inspection lanes and is the largest U.S. entry point for fresh produce from Mexico, representing about 45% of the fresh produce consumed in the U.S. during the winter months.
For more information: freightwaves.com
