Here’s a message to Congress, political candidates and the entire country: El Paso being at the epicenter of the national battle over immigration is a scenario that costs us all money, time and economic growth.
This crisis is doing far more damage to our beautiful city than the American media will ever tell you. But what if I told you that one of the worst things about the massive influx of asylum seekers from Juarez, Mexico, through El Paso, Texas, was its impact on international traffic?
This became evident in early January when Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reassigned railroad inspection agents from their regular job of inspecting trains for a second time to help process the massive volume of migrants.
Washington may have had no idea that every 10-minute delay in paperwork for railroads and trucks carrying goods across the border adds nearly $4 million. month to the cost of delivery of these goods.
Consider the consequences of having to sit an extra hour a day at the border because too many CBP officers have been transferred elsewhere. Do the math: that’s $4 million multiplied by 6 times 12 months a year, that’s over $280 million. But the truth is that many trains wait all day or longer – so multiply that $280 million by 24 and you start to see the breadth and depth of the problem. And this does not include product damage.
Roughly speaking, closing the Eagle Pass train station costs about $2.32 million a day, and the shutdown of the Eagle Pass and El Paso rail last winter resulted in a loss of $200 million. daily loss for the US economy.
Before the onslaught of millions of people seeking to enter the United States, residents of El Paso and Juarez, most of whom have relatives on both sides of the Rio Grande, moved freely between the sister cities, which together are home to 2.5 million people. Juarez is full of manufacturing, mostly goods that will be shipped north through El Paso to cities across the country.
But today, those routine border crossings have become a nightmare for shippers—and not just because of the added costs (and pollution) of sitting in long lines at checkpoints. Truckers and railroad workers are spending more time away from home, and delivery schedules at factories and to the final destinations of their products are being disrupted. As a result, consumers pay more.
As CEO of the 125-year-old El Paso Chamber of Commerce and Industry, much of my work involves advocating for the interests of businesses that move goods and services across the border in both directions, as well as encouraging new businesses to locate in El Paso. The current border crisis threatens our path.
Despite being home to Fort Bliss, one of the nation’s largest military bases, El Paso appears to be a forgotten city to the national press. One reason for this is its distance from almost anywhere: 430 miles from Phoenix and much further from other major Texas cities such as Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. El Paso isn’t even on the main Texas grid.
A fifth of all U.S.-Mexico trade crosses the border at El Paso, and yet the mainstream media only darkens our doors when migrants rush into barbed wire fences. Perhaps they simply don’t realize the importance of El Paso to Americans hundreds, even thousands of miles away.
Among the goods passing through our city are the largest number of vital medical devices and microchips from 17 factories concentrated in the state of Chihuahua.
Trade between Mexico and Texas alone grew to $285 billion in 2023, and the binational metropolitan area, which includes El Paso, Juarez and Las Cruces, is the fifth largest manufacturing center in the Western Hemisphere with more than 500 manufacturing facilities.
The Hunt Institute at the University of Texas at El Paso also concluded that amazing statistic about the impact of CBP staff overload (and therefore delivery delays). Hunt’s data shows how the suspension of border inspections of trains, which affects 10,000 train cars carrying critical goods into American cities, is hurting the businesses we serve.
We in El Paso view rail disruptions as part of a recurring pattern of knee-jerk reactions that impede international trade without achieving the primary goal of preventing contraband from entering the United States.
America’s demand for labor brought prosperity throughout the Rio Grande, so that there was no industrial space left to rent in the border metropolis. Even an industrial park in southeastern New Mexico is growing rapidly. Still, El Paso is having a hard time attracting industry, in part because the small amount of national reporting we get from both the right and the left adds gasoline to the increasingly hot fire.
What’s funny about El Paso’s public image is that our city has a low crime rate, affordable housing, nearby mountains, and an abundant workforce. What we lack is investment from corporations and manufacturers to put our people to work.
Make no mistake: Much of the blame for this deficit lies with the unserious politicians of both parties who chose El Paso as the center of the immigration debate.
Andrea Adkins-Hutchins is the CEO of the El Paso Chamber of Commerce.
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