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Lawmakers step in to help reopen closed railway

A U.S. Senator from Kansas says a closed rail passage connecting the United States and Mexico needs to reopen soon and if it doesn’t it might have lasting impacts for trade and U.S. agriculture.

Roger Marshall tells Brownfield trains from Kansas are on hold until the passage reopens.

“Where do we store all of these soybean cakes? Where do we store all the excess wheat? Even though we harvested the wheat back in July, we store it at all of the co-ops and now, it’s going to be sitting there for weeks or months as far as we know,” he says. “Even if we solved the problem today, it will take 30 to 60 days to unwind it.”

The National Grain and Feed Association told Brownfield the U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed the passage due to the surge of migrants coming to the U.S. border from Mexico. And Marshall says lawmakers are putting pressure on the Department of Homeland Security to reopen the passage quickly.

“I think the White House has underestimated the significant situation we’ve got here. Mexico is important to the United States. It’s now our number one trade partner, almost a billion dollars per year. That’s 50% more than what we trade with China now.”

The rail passage in south Texas has been closed since Monday.