(AFP) – Armed troops patrolling for migrants have become a familiar sight in Eagle Pass, Texas. While President Donald Trump’s order this week declaring a “national emergency” at the Mexican border may soon result in thousands of US Army soldiers heading south, troop deployments in Eagle Pass were already boosted last year. Separated from the Mexican city of Piedras Negras by the Rio Grande, Eagle Pass had been a focal point of friction between Texas’s staunchly conservative Republican Governor Greg Abbott, a Trump ally, and former president Joe Biden’s administration. Accusing Biden of failing to protect Texas from a migrant “invasion,” Abbott sent National Guard troops to Eagle Pass. Republican governors from other states sent reinforcements.
Through 2024, the center of military activity in the city has been Shelby Park, for decades a center of recreation, where families had picnics, dipped their feet in the river, or went kayaking on the Rio Grande, often intermingling with their Mexican neighbors. For Eagle Pass resident Jessie Fuentes, the deployments are just a “show,” with little impact on controlling migration. It’s “only five to six miles long. Everywhere else is open, so if (Abbott) thinks that made a difference, he has no idea,” added Fuentes, who said his family has lived on the border for “over 200 years.” Massive containers now line the border, where patrolling humvees kick up dirt and troops in fan boats scan the riverbanks.
– ‘A bit safer’ –
On the first day of his new term, Trump moved to overhaul US border security management, with hundreds of active duty soldiers expected to immediately head to Texas, and more likely to follow. About 50 of them stopped for breakfast on Saturday in San Antonio, three hours from the border, receiving applause from other diners. Some Eagle Pass residents said the Trump reinforcements brought comfort, including 25-year-old Maria Aquado. She lives on a ranch near the border and sometimes finds people who appear to be migrants spending the night in her stables, getting some rest before journeying north.
“I feel with him (Trump) sending troops this way, there would just be less activity. And yeah, I think we would feel a bit safer being in the ranch and not have to worry about who’s going to be coming through and what their intentions are,” she said. The number of US border patrol encounters with migrants crossing over from Mexico had spiked to 250,000 in December 2023 but fell to around 54,000 in September of last year. The shift was linked to tougher Biden administration immigration policies in an election year. Biden had signed an order to shut the border to asylum seekers after certain daily limits, while transit countries like Panama and Mexico had faced increased pressure from Mexico to tackle migrant flows.
– ‘Twiddling their thumbs’ –
Fuentes, 64, insisted that cooperation between governments was the only way to reduce migration, dismissing the effectiveness of military deployments and arguing the Texas National Guard troops should have packed up after Trump’s 2024 election win. “They started using these poor, innocent individuals (migrants) as political pawns to win an election. They won… It’s over, and now you can leave,” he said. “What are they doing, the soldiers, here? If you look at them, all they’re doing is sitting there and twiddling their thumbs.”
His kayaking business has been hurt by the increased military activity on the Rio Grande. “We don’t have to put up these deterrents like barbed wire or cyclone wire or slats of fencing or soldiers with guns,” he said. Ismael Castillo, 51, conceded that migrants passing through Eagle Pass can create unease, given that some have trespassed and damaged property. But, he said, “at the end of the day they mean no harm.” “They just want to better their lives and make something better for them and their families. And a lot of people don’t stay here in the border town. They usually go up north,” he said.
– Moisés ÁVILA
© 2024 AFP
