CAMERON COUNTY TO PARTICIPATE IN CROSS BORDER VAXXES

By Juan Montoya

After vacillating for nearly a month, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño finally gave the green light Wednesday for the county to participate in the cross-border program that delivers Texas-donated vaccines to needy Mexican residents of Tamaulipas.

In doing so, the county becomes the last one along the Texas-Tamaulipas border to allow use of one of their international bridges to deliver the vaccines to Mexican elderly, children and students. Already, Hidalgo County has been allowing the use of its international bridges at Donna and Hidalgo to donate the vaccines to people identified through the Tamaulipas Department of Social Welfare.

Previously, maquiladora workers had been were given the vaccines in an effort to blunt the spread of COVID-19 along the river.

The tardy response to the request by Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca's representatives for use of a bridge to implement the program prompted some Mexican officials to wonder whether Treviño's apparent reluctance flew in the face of the gesture of friendship between both countries during these past Charro Days.

There was Treviño clad in the traditional cuero of northern Mexico (left) releasing the dove of friendship along with Matamoros and Tamaulipas officials as a gesture of friendship along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Reports indicate that during that ceremony February 26, a representative of the Tamaulipas Governor  approached Treviño to inquire whether Cameron County would join Hidalgo County in participating in the cross-border COVID-19 vaccination program to be held at the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Currently, the cross-border vaccination program is in effect at Donna and Hidalgo. 

In fact, the same program is in effect in neighboring state of Nuevo Leoan where school buses full of students are transported to the Puente Colombia to receive their vaccines against COVID-19.

Tamaulipas government officials had texted Treviño about his county's participation in the program, if not at Los Indios Free Trade bridge then at Veterans.

The messages, apparently, were ignored by Treviño and when an official approached him at the bridge ceremony, he was be curtly rebuffed and told that his assistants had objected to the use of the bridges here for the implementation of the program providing vaccines to Mexican elderly and children who did not have it available.

That drew a surprised missive from Tamaulipas representatives.

"You attitude surprised and saddened me especially during these times of celebrating these ties of friendship and brotherhood between the USA and Mexico and Brownsville and Matamoros, and to wonder whether they were nothing more than words that were not supported by acts," wrote a Tamaulipas official... so different than with other cities in the Rio Grande Valley like Hidalgo and McAllen, where the city presented our governor with the key yo the city."

The official stated that in delaying the participation in the cross-border vaccination program, Cameron County was the only county along the Tamaulipas-Texas border that did not participate in the the humanitarian efforts.

"Unfortunately, unlike the other entities upriver, there has been very little communication with Cameron County and Brownsville," the official wrote. "All we were asking was for the use of the bridge to show you that its implementation was safe and reassure you of its effectiveness.

In a follow-up missive from Tamaulipas officials – also ignored by Treviño – they pointed out that Cameron is "the only county that has not permitted the cross-border vaccination humanitarian program."

A week after they communicated with Treviño and received no answer, they asked him to list the reasons that the county would not participate in the porgam

"If you would be so kind as to send us an official statement where you can tell us the reasons for the negative response...and if there is a possibility that we could implement the program, please let us know..."