Texas border has always been and will always be a problem.
Trump lied and illegal migrants went up - closing the border didn't stop them from coming https://www.factcheck.org/2024/04/trumps-misleading-chart-on-illegal-immigration/
It wasn't a problem until Obama and Biden propped open the door.
Texas has always considered its border with Mexico as a major asset, and respected the blended culture that exists along the border, with both sides walking back and forth with little interruption from either country.
Now the border is a war zone with drug cartels in charge. Makes one wonder if Biden and drug cartels have formed an alliance.
@Heartlander you are so wrong about all of what you say. My relatives in S TX have always talked about the border and immigrants. But, they knew they needed the cheap labor.
As to why the more recent increase, blame it on the economy in other countries. Migrants are seeking to come to the US because they are starving in their countries. Data shows that the migrant population has lower rates of crime than native be born US citizens.
Most fentanyl comes across the borders not on the backs of the immigrants, but in vehicles, in large shipments that can not be inspected due to lack of resources. Add to that, of there are as no.demand to n the US for the drugs, there would be no reason to bring them in.
The US has not spent enough money to examine ne why there is so.mch demand in our country and how to deal with that. Our country&s trspons has been primarily law enforcement, after billions of dollars expended, that has not been eff ct d!
@samueltyler2 I have relatives that live at the border. I can stand in one cousin's yard and see into Mexico. A block away is the international bridge and lunch in Mexico is but a 30 minute walk.
On that note is the old Cadillac Bar in Nuevo Laredo. An institution since the US prohibition days closed it's doors a dozen years ago due to drug related violence driving tourist away.
Until very recent years we visited the border a couple of times a year, usually staying at the old La Posada Hotel which sits on the river and adjacent to the bridge and border patrol. Over the more recent years there was seldom a visit without horrible drug related incidents were at the top of the news. Decapitated bodies, bodies hangings from street lights, all within a few blocks into Mexico.
Those crime statistics are bogus. Illegal immigrants don't pick up the phone and call the cops when they are victimized. They either pay up, or run, or suck it up; but they don't call the cops. It's one of the forces driving the immigration problem.
Yea, the illegals don't always carry the drugs, but are used as diversions; or are part of the cartels' other businesses: human trafficking.
@Heartlander They wouldn't have to call the police, if they are such criminals we would know, because the victims would call. There is no question how terrible the cartels are, and I would not go to visit in Mexico, but that is irrelevant as to the discussion.
@samueltyler2 Very relevant. The same cartel violence that drive US tourist away also drive Mexicans and others away. I hear this a lot from my border area friends. With the fear of your kids being drafted into a cartel gang there is good reason to flee Mexico and other Central/South American countries. Our church teams up with a local medical school and sends doctors and dentist to a certain country. Some years the threat is such that the mission is cancelled.
Here's the fate of the Mexico City police chief.
Mexico City is now accepting applications for his replacement.
@SDavis Some very good points, you made here, living in Houston wow, I lived in AZ yet only saw smaller portions of the problems. I often wonder what is the solution?
My love affair with the border area and Mexico goes back to the early 1960s, and i can pretty much trace the transitions from then to now. A number of things contributed to the immigration crisis we have now. Under both Democrat and Republican administrations. But more recently it's been the Biden/Obama duo that propped the gate open. Until then, illegal border crossing was a crime, like it is for most countries on earth. Before then, when someone got caught they got deported. If they got caught doing it over and over the penalty was jail time. Pretty much the same rule for every country on earth. The deterrent for practically every crime that exists is to stiffen the penalty for repeat offenders. Does anyone with more than 2 DWIs ever get his/her license back?
I'm not a fan of the wall, for a lot of reasons. I also spent some time in the Canal Zone where it was the FENCE that became the object of contention. The wall will likely one day become the object of contention, like in Panama, separating the haves from the have nots. More likely than not as drug cartels get more and more powerful.
There's a lot more to our border issues, but the best first step in solving all of them is to throw Democrats out of Washington and make illegal border crossing a crime again and deport first time offenders. And like with any other crime, up the penalty when someone does it again. Do that and we may not need the wall, and I may be here protesting the wall :)
@Heartlander copier and I see. I seriously doubt you go back to 1960. You would have indicated that long before I did.
And illegal border crossing is still illegal...... And Texas borders has always been open to legal _ legal _ legal immigrants - and they passed the law in 1952 making it such https://guides.sll.texas.gov/immigration-law
Statistics show that more people are coming because not only are they coming from Mexico they're coming from all areas of Central America and South America person and a strong population increase..
And Obama deported more illegals than Trump and did it in a humanitarian fashion person and NEITHER PRESIDENT OBAMA or PRESIDENT BIDEN made it legal. Biden open the borders to legal immigrants, person.
