Businesses on both sides of the Rio Grande are losing hundreds of millions of dollars in trade due to protests by truckers angry about Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s directive to conduct a extensive search of each truck that crosses at border ports of call, the Washington Post reports.

Business leaders in Texas are pleading with Abbott to lift the restrictions to allow the end of the protests, where truckers on the Mexican side of the border block lanes to limit traffic and which has cause miles-long backups on both sides of the port.  Many of those trucks on the Mexican side are carrying fresh produce to processors in Texas; their cargos are spoiling after sitting in lines for days.

“This has directly impacted our business since late last week. We would typically be receiving 10 to 12 loads of watermelon per day from Mexico, as well as different kinds of herbs and greens. Since the middle of last week, we have received zero of those shipments of watermelon,” Bret Erickson, senior vice president of business affairs for Little Bear Produce, a grower-packer-shipper located in Texas, said.  Erickson said the inspections have already cost his company “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Abbott has been scrambling to find ways to reduce the impact of his order, including coming to de facto trade agreements with the governors of neighboring Mexican states–agreements that may face challenges from federal authorities for overstepping the legal authority of a state governor.