Business as usual

In a line of about 10 vehicles at the Free Trade Bridge in Los Indios, Eduardo Galan was surprised to hear that he needed documentation to prove his citizenship if he wanted to return to the United States.

“I hadn’t heard about that,” he said as he inched toward the checkpoint in his Chevrolet truck.

Although he was unaware of recent changes for U.S. citizens re-entering the country, Galan pulled out his birth registration card from his wallet.

“I always keep it with me,” Galan said.

Winter Texans returning from Nuevo Progreso clutched their passports along with souvenirs, prescriptions and bottles of liquor as they queued up at the border crossing turnstile Thursday.

Nearly all the Winter Texans who spoke to the Valley Morning Star said they knew about the requirement for a passport or birth certificate and photo ID that began Thursday.

“We’re prepared,” Carl Hurley, a Winter Texan from Oklahoma, said pointing to the passport in his pocket.

Tom and Jerry Page of Chillicothe, Ohio, had passports because they needed them to go on cruises, they said.

Tom and Laurie, from Cincinnati, Ohio, who declined to give their last names, said they, too, already had passports for cruises, vacations and business trips.

But Laverne and Betty Leigh were caught by surprise. “Our birth certificates are in safety deposit boxes in Iowa,” Laverne said.

Instead of being held up in Mexico, they were given a strong reminder to carry additional documentation from now on.

Federal officials said Thursday’s change in procedure could increase wait times at Rio Grande Valley bridges, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge noticed few holdups.

“We’ve had almost no one without the proper documentation,” said Felix Garza, a spokesman for CBP’s Rio Grande Valley sector.

At 4 p.m., CBP reported little change in flow of traffic along the bridges with a 30-minute delay at the Brownsville and Matamoros International Bridge, 40-minute delay at the Gateway International Bridge, no delay at the Free Trade Bridge and a 20-minute delay at the Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates.

A few Winter Texans said they were more concerned about dozens of heavily armed Mexican soldiers who were present in Nuevo Progreso as part of their government’s crackdown on Gulf Cartel drug-related violence.

But most retirees and tourists said they were unfazed by the military presence and were prepared for the new document requirements for U.S. citizens to present a passport or birth certificate with photo ID.

Lynn Hermosa/Valley Morning Star

Pedestrians with passports went to the outside line on the left, while the people having other documents such as drivers licenses and birth certificates went inside the building at the checkpoint at the Progreso bridge on the United States side Thursday.

Karen Macking, who described herself as a “permanent Winter Texan” living at Trail’s End RV Park in Weslaco, said she is originally from New York.

She was accompanied by her sister, brother and their spouses, all from the Poughkeepsie and Buffalo areas.

“They just came down and they’re spending the week,” she said. “All of us have passports.”

Macking, who has lived in the Rio Grande Valley for 10 years, said she told her relatives they needed to bring their passports with them for travel in Mexico, even just to go over to Nuevo Progreso for a day of shopping. So they were prepared.

Producing documents to cross the border and the presence of the Mexican soldiers are nothing new to her, Macking said.

“I used to live in the (Panama) Canal Zone in the 1970s,” she said. “We traveled up through Central America. We had a little Volkswagen camper and we camped our way up (to the United States). … I’m used to having the national guard on every street corner. But I think it kind of took my brother and sister back a little bit because they’re not used to that.”

Art Lourien, a Winter Texan for 22 seasons, said he was trained at the gunnery school at Harlingen Army Airfield in 1943, so he is familiar with the Valley.

The presence of trucks and Humvees filled with soldiers and bristling with weapons is nothing new to him, he said.

“We know what they’re after,” he said. “Drug dealers.”

He had seen a report on television and knew the passport requirement started Thursday, he said.

But his friend, who only had a driver’s license, seemed a little nervous.

Lourien told him not to worry about getting back across the bridge since it was the first day for the new requirement.

Lourien, who stays at Tropic Star Park in Pharr, said he, his wife and friend came for shopping and lunch.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Progreso checkpoint closely examined photographs on passports, but efficiently kept the lines through the turnstyles moving.

The Los Indios checkpoint is rarely busy, customs agents said. One agent said many people didn’t have the proper documentation. Despite this, another agent said the day was going along smoothly with few problems.

Agents at Los Indios said they were being lenient with people crossing the border since Thursday was the first day of the new regulations. If agents could quickly verify that a person was a citizen, but didn’t have the proper documentation, they would be allowed to continue crossing. But if not, they were asked to pull over where their citizenship could be verified.

Throughout the afternoon, most of the vehicles crossing into the United States had Mexican license plates, and it often took less than 10 minutes for a group of 10 cars to cross the border.

Border crossers — from both sides of the border — were given information sheets that explained the new rules. It is current policy for all border crossers to receive the fliers, an agent said.

Since traffic at the Los Indios bridge is often very slow, agents said they were anxious to see what would happen during the weekend when more people cross the border at the Free Trade Bridge.

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Monitor reporter Kyle Arnold and Brownsville Herald reporter Emma Perez-Treviño contributed to this report.