Expansion to Mexican side of Santa Teresa Port of Entry expected to boost business, traffic in New Mexico

SANTA TERESA, New Mexico -- The Mexican government announced Wednesday that 440 million pesos, or just over 22 million dollars, will be invested in the Mexican side of the Santa Teresa port of Entry, ahead of expected rapid growth.

Many Asian companies are moving their electric car battery production to Mexico, specifically south Juarez and imports of these are predicted to skyrocket.

The point of entry gained some interest earlier this year when truckers had to wait for very long amounts of time at El Paso points of entry, such as the Bridge of the Americas and the Zaragoza crossing, due to increased inspections.

“It’s tremendous" said Jerry Pacheco, president of Border Industrial Assosication.

"As we saw in April, when Texas went through their secondary inspections and caused a lot of problems, Santa Teresa was a relief route for commercial traffic in El Paso, and we kept commerce going" he added.

New Mexico Secretary of Economic Development, Alicia Keyes, expressed her excitement about the project on Wednesday.

“We are very excited about collaborating with not only Mexico, but also our friends from Chihuahua. This has been a long time coming, and the time is now" she said.

Along with the expansions comes more traffic, and there are already plans and funding in place to build a relief route.

Currently, the primary exit from Santa Teresa Port of Entry for truckers is the Pete Domenici Highway, looping northeast to I-10. However, a new 40-million-dollar project expected to start next year and end the following, provides a bypass for truckers directly from the Santa Teresa Port of Entry right to Sunland Park at Paisano.

“That’s going to help with a lot of the traffic flows in the future," said Pacheco of the new relief route.

The Mexican government added that they're hoping to double the amount of border crossings at Santa Teresa within the next two years.