Border officials allow hundreds of Mexican vehicles to cross despite coronavirus travel ban

Customs and Border Protection officials are defying the Trump administration’s directive to block all nonessential foreign travel into the United States from Mexico, allowing noncitizens claiming to be on shopping trips to continue entering, according to two officials involved in the implementation of the order.

CBP employees in Arizona told the Washington Examiner Saturday they were instructed Friday night at the start of the executive order and again this morning not to turn around noncitizens who said they were coming in to shop, visit family, or for medical appointments. By Saturday morning, “hundreds” of vehicles that should have been blocked at the port of entry had been allowed through, two officials said.

“We’re letting them through. And that’s pretty much the gist of it,” one official said. “Nobody’s enforcing it. It was put up — the president put it out. The chief patrol put it out. And we’re just not doing it.”

“In plain English, it was a giant shit show,” said a second official. “Nobody followed the directive, a plain and simple directive. You’re trying to keep the coronavirus from going north … yet you just let it bleed through anyway, so you’re not doing the job you’re directed to. That’s what’s aggravating.”

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