The Biden administration plans to reopen the U.S.-Mexico border for fully vaccinated travelers Nov. 8.
The Department of Homeland Security announced in a news release last month that the modifications of the Title 19 regulations will take place in two phases over the next few months.
This month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin allowing fully vaccinated travelers from Mexico to enter the United States at land and ferry ports of entry for non-essential reasons. Travelers will be required to have appropriate paperwork that provides proof of vaccination.
Beginning early January 2022, DHS will require that all travelers crossing U.S. land or ferry ports whether for essential or non-essential reasons, be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and provide related proof of vaccination.
“Non-essential travelers will be required to provide proof of full vaccination by a vaccine approved by the World Health Organization,” the news release reads.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) spoke with Vaquero Radio about the reopening of the border.
“For people along the border, nonessential travel is essential to us,” said Cuellar, who represents Texas’ 28th Congressional District, which includes the cities of Laredo, Mission, Rio Grande City and San Antonio.
“When they closed the border back in March of 2020. Before that, we would get about 18 million Mexicans that would come into the U.S. and would go to our restaurants, our stores, go to our hotels, go to entertainment, and they would spend about $19 billion in the U.S. So, when they closed the border because of the pandemic in one year, we lost $19 billion. And then, that would have been March of 2021. And if you go from March of 2021 to now, we have lost over $30 billion … based on the numbers we have in the past. Therefore, what we’re seeing here is a[n] economic impact to our border communities.”
Cuellar plans to be at the border reopening.
“I certainly want to be there,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m a be there at 12:01 or I’m a be there at 8 o’clock when they open up … I’ve been waiting to get there for a long time.”
This is Carla Landaverde for Vaquero Radio.
