NOGALES: Truckers crossing the border from Mexico into Nogales face longer inspections and heavier fines from the U.S. Department of Transportation than those crossing through other ports of entry, according to the Safe Border Trucking Association.
Alejandro Andrade, SBTA board chairman, said that Nogales is becoming less competitive with other border ports as a result.
“A lot of the business from Nogales is going to Texas now,” he said.
Andrade said that USDOT has a heavier presence in Nogales and other Arizona ports of entry than in other border states, where state departments of transportation are much more likely to carry out inspections of inbound trucks. In Nogales, this has led to “excessive and redundant inspections by federal, state, and local agencies,” according to a press release from the SBTA.
Another consequence of the heavier federal presence is that truckers crossing in Nogales received 44 percent of the federal fines issued for vehicle violations in recent years while accounting for just 8 percent of truck crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border, Andrade said. He added that those fines add up to around $5 million per year.
Andrade and several other members of the SBTA went to Washington D.C. in June to argue their case and met with members of Arizona’s congressional delegation and representatives of several federal agencies, including USDOT and Customs and Border Protection.
What they were pushing for was a more uniform policy of DOT inspections and a more even distribution of federal inspectors among ports across the border.
“The ideal thing is lower (federal presence), but at least the same treatment all over the border,” he said.
SBTA also lobbied for a program to allow Mexican nationals to work as truckers in the United States as temporary workers to help address what Andrade described as a serious shortage of drivers.
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