Mexican trucks have to stop at the border and transfer goods to U.S. truckers, until tomorrow, Friday October 21st. Then everything changes and we lose jobs and security. Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Bob Filner (D-CA) have been, and are still, fighting against this 1994 NAFTA provision, which has been contested in court, but apparently survived. Unlikely that I would ever agree with the Teamsters on anything, but I think I’m on their side with this one. In the meantime, Tennessee is the first state to have TSA agents showing up on highways, as well as in their airports. “Where is a terrorist apt to be found?…more likely on the interstate,” says a Tennessee Homeland Security Commissioner. See an UPDATE below.
Washington on Friday last week approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.
Transportes Olympic’s long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo…
U.S. inspectors will check the trucks Thursday and will also have a database on truckers who have been approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Perez said.
The database? Like our terrorist watch lists? We know how well that works.
Tennessee’s Homeland Security has deployed “Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) (whaaaat???) at five weigh stations and two bus stations throughout the state.
Agents are recruiting truck drivers, like Rudy Gonzales, into the First Observer Highway Security Program to say something if they see something.
“Not only truck drivers, but cars, everybody should be aware of what’s going on, on the road,” said Gonzales.
It’s all meant to urge every driver to call authorities if they see something suspicious.
“Somebody sees something somewhere and we want them to be responsible citizens, report that and let us work it through our processes to abet the concern that they had when they saw something suspicious,” said Paul Armes, TSA Federal Security Director for Nashville International Airport.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol checked trucks with drug and bomb sniffing dogs during random inspections.
“The bottom line is this: if you see something suspicious say something about it,” Gibbons said Tuesday.
I found this reminder at DeadEnders:
Remember back in 07-08 when Obama and his crew of crafty cronies got caught telling the Canadians the truth that he would do nothing about NAFTA while blathering about changing or repealing it on the trail. (Has NAFTA even been mentioned in the news in the past 3 years)
The new regulations will allow Mexican trucking companies to use the less expensive drivers to undersut the US compaies. In reality those drivers have been getting green cards and coming across the border to drive US trucks for years.
Under NAFTA the drivers must speak english, but if they get a green card, and sign on with a company on this side of the border, they can bypass that requirement.
I don’t disagree with the Tennessee program, assuming they are not harrassingAmericans, but it would be far more helpful to keep terrorists out the country in the first place, and yes, I do realize that some terrorists among us are both Americans and terrorists. Another reason this program might be needed is the first story above. We now have Mexican truckers whizzing around on American soil.
This will not be a trouble-free program. I can think of numerous chilling scenarios that may make the TSA Highway program a necessity. We continue to lose our freedom daily, when we could prevent 99% of the terror if we chose to do so. Shaw’s Blog was talking about this story last July. Read the details.
UPDATE 4:15 pm CDT: Just heard an interesting conversation on The Five about the Mexican truckers. Eric Bolling is for it and this is his reasoning: Mexican truckers will not be Union and be paid less. U.S. Unions worker will say, I’m not getting the business anyway, so I’m not going to pay Union dues. This will encourage truckers to work outside of Unions, and in Bollings opinions, it Unions who will be the losers. What do you think?