The city of Donna has signed a Donation Acceptance Agreement with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), paving the way for the $62 million Donna Land Port of Entry expansion project to accommodate commercial traffic. The agreement authorizes construction to begin, slated for groundbreaking in 2026.
The project is anticipated to be delivered through a public-private partnership model facilitated by the federal Donations Acceptance Program (DAP). Under the program, local governments and private entities may help accelerate federal projects by contributing land, funding or services.
Currently, travel times across the bridge typically take up to an hour, with the risk of limited lanes and inspection capacity tacking on two-to-three-hour delays. To streamline traffic flow, the city will expand both the north and southbound inspection facilities, providing additional space for fully laden commercial vehicles. Plans include adding additional commercial lanes and inspection booths.
A cornerstone component of the project revolves around the integration of non-intrusive inspection technology to create a modernized land port of entry. Inspection technology will play a critical role in further improving processing, enabling faster travel times and optimized efficiency.
Land ports are the bulkheads of trade in the United States, generating hundreds of billions in revenue each year. The Donna Land Port of Entry alone is expected to see truck traffic rise from 400,000 to 600,000 annually and potentially see trade value increase from $8 billion to up to $15 billion. Streamlined processing will help ensure time-sensitive goods can more easily cross the border from Mexico, improving trade while mitigating costs as a result.
Photo by Larry D. Moore, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, from Wikimedia Commons
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