A report released late last week by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general said inspection stations at the U.S.-Mexican border won’t be ready for the mid-July border opening date to Mexican trucks that has been bandied about.

In testimony before a U.S. Senate committee, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta didn’t offer a specific target date, but said Mexican access would come “in the near future.
“We will not open the border if doing so poses an unacceptable risk,” he said.
However, the report said that significant progress has been made in getting the border facilities ready. For instance, the Otay Mesa and the Calexico crossings in California both have enough space to inspect trucks and to keep those that fail inspections.
In addition to readying facilities, the government must hire and train inspectors, which could take longer, according to the report. Mineta said he expects that nearly 150 new border inspectors and 67 new safety auditors will have completed their training by the end of the month. By midsummer, the U.S. will have more than four times the number of personnel at the border compared with a year earlier, he told the Senators.
Another potential problem is that only California and Arizona have passed legislation authorizing enforcement personnel to take action if they encounter Mexican trucks that don’t have authority to operate in the U.S.