JAMMED UP AT THE BORDER

PROGRESO -- Free trade has taken a back seat to the war on drugs at border
crossings, complain some South Texas business operators who say inspections
and other delays are costing them money.

The situation is only expected to get worse this week with a new
requirement that suspicious trucks carrying grain and other hard-to-inspect
cargo must be escorted to the town of Pharr, where a huge new X-ray machine
is being used to detect hidden drugs.

"Things aren't working too smoothly right now for commerce," said a glum
Bill Summers, director of a business group called the Rio Grande Valley
Partnership.

"We feel that, sure, they have a job to do on drug interdiction, but they
also have a commitment to honest people to get the trucks through as fast
as they can because some are carrying perishable goods.

"They have to remember it was trade that built these bridges."

Increasingly, many of the Southwest's 37 international bridges along the
2,000-mile Mexican border are being swamped with long lines of cars and
commercial trucks awaiting inspection.

At one of the heaviest traffic points -- Laredo's two international bridges
- -- truckers sometimes wait up to eight hours to cross from Mexico into
Texas. Near McAllen, on the Hidalgo bridge, the problem is less severe, but
the average wait for a driver of a passenger car coming from Mexico is 40
minutes.

Officials with the understaffed U.S. Customs Service, which conducts the
vehicle inspections, would like to develop a more organized system of
border crossings, with some bridges restricted to commercial trucks and
others limited to passenger vehicles.

But business leaders fear that approach may severely harm the economies of
some border towns that have depended on a certain amount of commercial
traffic.

When the Customs Service announced last October that it would no longer
allow commercial trucks to cross at Progreso, a small border crossing
between Brownsville and McAllen, the resulting outcry and Washington
lobbying effort forced customs to back down.

Even so, the locals say customs has applied pressure through meticulous
inspections to discourage the 20 or so trucks that cross daily through
Progreso.

"I have an importer of Mexican limes, and during (one) month he brought in
16 truckloads, and they required 100 percent unloading of 10 trucks," said
William Cain, who operates Cain Customs' Brokers in Progreso. The $300
charged by stevedores to unload the cargo cut sharply into his client's
profit.

And all along the border, the inspectors' intensive search for drugs has
sometimes meant damage to trucks and frustration for the shippers.

In searching for hidden compartments where cocaine and other contraband
might be concealed, inspectors often drill holes in expensive trailers but
don't repair the damage or repay the trucking companies.

"They drill the ceilings, the walls, they drill in floors, and they don't
patch them, or tell my guys about them," said the owner of a Valley meat
packing company. "You get a bunch of bloody water seeping into the walls,
and the trailer starts to stink."

"They're drilling all up and down the border," grumbled Cain. "There isn't
as much drilling going on in the oil fields.

"I think the authorities have gone overboard," he added, "and are hurting
legitimate business in their efforts to stop the flow of illegal narcotics."

Customs officials, like Maria Reba, who discussed the problems with
merchants at a recent meeting, say they are "under incredible pressure to
put drugs on the table."

Texas Attorney General Dan Morales told law enforcement officers in
November that the North American Free Trade Agreement is opening the border
to a larger flow of illegal drugs.

"Without thorough inspection of Mexican trucks, these Mexican cartels will
feel like NAFTA means the North American Free Trafficking Agreement,"
Morales said.

Nevertheless, customs remains under pressure from public and private bridge
owners -- and border state congressmen -- to keep bridges open longer and
reduce the waiting time to 20 minutes. Adding to the pressure is the fact
that several new bridges are on the drawing board.

"So when you ask me to open more bridges, which require more staff, you're
essentially preventing my ability to bring the waiting down to 20 minutes,"
said customs official David Higgerson, who oversees operations at the
Progreso and Pharr bridges. "We can't do that, we don't have the resources.
We're stretched very thin."

"They're stretched, but the answer is not closing bridges and shutting off
traffic," said Larry Neal, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm. "The
solution is better management, and the long-term answer is more people and
better equipment."

This month, Gramm plans to introduce legislation that would allocate $219
million over the next two years to hire 1,705 new customs inspectors, 1,100
of which would be assigned to the Southwest border, with 612 of those going
to Texas, Neal said.

In addition to the new inspectors, Gramm proposes to spend $56 million to
acquire new technology to be installed at border crossings, including
surveillance cameras, mobile and stationary X-ray machines to inspect
trucks, and ultrasonic machines to scan containers.

"We need to do what's necessary to increase the legal trade and shut off
the flow of illegal drugs," Neal said. "That's going to take a great deal
more equipment and people."