The mayor of a Texas border town has told Newsweek that a new rail line planned to end at the neighboring city just across the Rio Grande could ease security concerns around migration, rather than adding to them.
Laredo mayor Dr. Victor Trevino was reacting to plans announced by Mexico’s incoming president, Claudia Sheinbaum, for three passenger train lines, including one to Nuevo Laredo.
Another could eventually be built to Nogales, Mexico, which sits close to its namesake in Arizona.
The plan to boost Mexico’s rail network with around 1,850 miles of new track did not come as a surprise to Trevino.
“These discussions have been among many of the binational discussions that I have with my Mexican Counterpart in Nuevo Laredo, Alcaldesa Carmen Lilia Canturosas,” he told Newsweek.
Migrant people of different nationalities seeking asylum in the United States travel on freight cars of the Mexican train known as “The Beast” as they arrive at the border city of Ciudad Juarez, in Chihuahua state, Mexico on April 24, 2024.
HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images
There are already rail lines which cross the border between Nuevo Laredo and Laredo, but they as designated for freight traffic. Despite that, routes have been used by smugglers to try to get migrants into the U.S. without using an official crossing point.
On Jul. 9, border patrol rescued 23 people from a freight train after it had crossed at Laredo. They were found trapped in a locked compartment.
The town’s mayor said having designated passenger trains might alleviate this.
“Because anyone that lives on the border understands that security is one of the major concerns among tourists traveling to Mexican border with the United States,” Travino told Newsweek.
“These passenger train projects will alleviate some of those concerns and could reignite conversations of passenger trains as an alternative form of transportation in our region and the United States.”
US border patrol floodlights are placed near the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas, on January 14, 2019 as a train crosses the Texas-Mexican Railway International Bridge. Mexico is just minutes away on foot, the time it takes to walk across one of the bridges that span the Rio Grande, intimately connecting Laredo, Texas to its Mexican sister Nuevo Laredo.
SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images
As of July 2024, there is no passenger rail service and a previous plan to force freight companies to make space for the service appears to have been scrapped in favor of new rail tracks instead.
President-elect Sheinbaum plans to build a 680-mile line from Mexico City to Nuevo Laredo, with electric trains able to run up to 100 m.p.h., at a cost of $22 billion.
Another proposal, to run a service from Mexico City to Guadalajara in the west, could eventually be extended up to Nogales on the Arizona border, or other cities along the line, Sheinbaum said.
On the Texas side of the border, passenger service from Amtrak ended in 1981 and the town has been without any public rail transit since 1989.
For Mayor Trevino, the hope is that Mexico’s plan will change that.
“As the #1 port of entry in the United States, we applaud and welcome any increase in infrastructure that will not only boost commerce but will also boost tourism in our region,” Trevino said.
Newsweek reached out to Amtrak for comment on the plans but is yet to receive a response.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.