US-Mexico border gridlock to ease as Texas ending extra checks

Texas will stop carrying out extra inspections of trucks arriving at the United States’s southern border with Mexico, Governor Greg Abbott has said, after the US state reached an agreement with neighbouring Mexican states.

The agreement calls for the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas to increase security efforts focusing on illegal border crossings and drug smuggling, Abbott and Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca said on Friday during a joint news conference.

Last week, Abbott ordered state authorities to conduct “enhanced safety inspections” of vehicles as they cross from Mexico into Texas in order to uncover smuggling of people and contraband.

The move snarled traffic, with some truckers reporting wait times of more than 30 hours to cross the border into the US, and prompted protests that shut down several commercial crossings in Texas and New Mexico.

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