Truckers and anti-illegal immigration forces joined hands at the Capitol on Monday, April 23, to protest a Bush administration plan to let Mexican trucks haul freight deep into the United States.
The Bush administration announced plans in February for a pilot project to permit 100 Mexican trucking companies to travel beyond the current 20-mile limit. About 75 sign-carrying truckers and their supporters voiced their disapproval of the project during a rally on the Capitol’s south steps.
Protesters included members of the anti-illegal immigration group, the Oklahoma Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, which is headed by Steve Merrill, former immigration agent. They heard speakers say permitting Mexican trucks into the country would present safety, security, environmental and economic problems for Americans. Ron Black, a former radio talk show host, blasted the project as an attack on U.S. sovereignty.
“The security of our country is at risk for the benefit of just a few companies,” said trucker Jay Michael Riley. He and his wife, Claret, a truck driving team, helped found Americans for Safe Highways and Secure Borders, an organization of longhaul truck drivers and supporters opposed to allowing Mexican trucks to travel U.S. highways.
Riley said the Mexican government had not developed a database of Mexican truckers as promised under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the proposed NAFTA superhighway. He said allowing Mexican trucks to travel U.S. roads would increase drug trafficking, expose Americans to safety risks, promote illegal immigration and even allow terrorists easy access to the country.
“Where do you think all of those worn out trucks go — they go to Mexico,” said Dan Howard of Outraged Patriots. Other speakers said Mexican truckers are poorly paid, and allowing them into the United States would put American truckers out of business.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, along with a group of five other organizations, contends the U.S. Department of Transportation has violated federal laws regarding public notice and comment required before opening the border to Mexico-based trucking companies. “We have strongly opposed this program since first introduced, and in particular, the secretive nature in which it has been presented by the DOT,” said Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president.
