U.S. military personnel posting restricted access signs along the border in Santa Teresa, N.M. The area has essentially become a military base. CBS News image
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Does this make any sense? This week, CBS News reported on how the border area near Santa Teresa, New Mexico has been declared a restricted military zone. The U.S. military is being deployed to deter smuggling of migrants and narcotics. Despite this effort to clamp down on weaknesses in border security, Union Pacific is seeking a waiver to allow trains operated by engineers from Mexico to travel more than 20 miles into the United States — near Santa Teresa.
The CBS story, which can be viewed here, goes on to describe how American families who have hiked and hunted on federal lands owned by the Bureau of Land Management near this southern border area for generations have been barred from what has essentially become a military base.
With this level of restricted access, a waiver for foreign nationals to have unprecedented access in this area to operate trains currently operated only by American train crews — by all measures — is an added and unnecessary security risk.
The threat to border security if train crews from Mexico are allowed to operate in the U.S. is not hypothetical. Last week, the Weekly Recap reported that employees of Mexico’s largest railroad, Ferromex, who operate locomotives, were arrested by Mexican customs officers for allegedly attempting to traffic narcotics across the U.S. border. Earlier this year, in another incident, the Weekly Recap reported the arrest of a Ferromex engineer Cesar Alexis Ayala Zapata on U.S. soil and charged with smuggling migrants.
BLET has asked the Trump administration to block waivers for Mexican national engineers to operate trains on the U.S. side of the border near Santa Teresa and at other border areas. If you haven’t already added your name, take a minute now and participate in our Take Action to protect the U.S. border and American jobs.