Eagle Pass tires of spotlight as Texas immigration fight intensifies

[February 07, 2024]  By Ted Hesson

EAGLE PASS, Texas (Reuters) - Main Street in downtown Eagle Pass, Texas, is quiet as Laurel Cadena pushes a stroller with her 3-week-old daughter nestled inside, a stark contrast from hours before when dueling protests over U.S.-Mexico border policy filled the air with shouts and chants.

Cadena, a 22-year-old college student and U.S. citizen, has visited the shopping strip since she was a child. Many customers cross the border legally from Piedras Negras, the Mexican city on the other side of the Rio Grande, to buy everything from clothes and flowers to a replica of the Eiffel Tower.

"It's affordable. You can get scissors for 99 cents," she said. "I'm not going to Walmart if I can go downtown."

But in the past year, Eagle Pass has attracted other visitors: thousands of migrants crossing the river illegally and Texas National Guard troops trying to stop them, sparking a political and legal standoff between Texas' Republican Governor Greg Abbott and President Joe Biden's Democratic administration.

Despite a cross-border history that spans generations, the 28,000-person city finds itself at the center of a heated political debate in the run up to Nov. 5 presidential elections.

Over the weekend, hundreds of protesters against illegal immigration trekked to a ranch near Eagle Pass to show their support for former President Donald Trump, an immigration hardliner and the Republican Party's leading candidate to challenge Biden. Some protesters drove through the downtown on Sunday with pickup trucks decorated with pro-Trump and far-right messages. Biden bested Trump in Maverick County, where Eagle Pass in located, in 2020, despite losing the state to Trump.

Cadena thinks both parties should find ways to help migrants, calling razor wire installed along the banks of the Rio Grande by Texas "extreme."

Some residents sympathize with the migrants but have lost patience. Last year, U.S. border officials twice shut down one of Eagle Pass' two bridges to Mexico and reassigned workers to help process migrants as crossings rose.

The bridge shutdown led to long waits at Eagle Pass' border port with Mexico and caused steep losses for local businesses, said Margie Montoya, interim executive director of the Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce.

"We depend on the people coming in from Mexico," she said.

A PIVOTAL PARK

A short walk from Main Street, the state of Texas has commandeered Shelby Park, a 47-acre expanse alongside the Rio Grande, and built a border barrier with shipping containers and concertina wire to reduce illegal crossings. Texas troops patrol the border, taking on a legally contentious role that historically has been the domain of the federal government.

While some residents welcome the actions by Texas, the city will need to rethink major events planned for the park in the coming year, including a festival in March and solar eclipse in April that could draw 50,000 visitors, Montoya said.

A local resident of Eagle Pass Laurel Cadena poses for a photo in Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., February 4, 2024. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File Photo

Children's baseball leagues will start soon and will likely need to find other locations to play, she said.

At the same time, some businesses have benefited from the surge in Texas troops and other law enforcement stationed there, including hotels and restaurants, she said.

Despite the intense political climate, the number of migrants attempting to cross the border fell in January, particularly in Eagle Pass and surrounding areas.

The decrease was largely tied to a drop in Venezuelan migrants following a push by U.S. and Mexican authorities to disrupt smuggling networks transporting them, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official told Reuters, requesting anonymity to discuss non-public information.

A spokesperson for Mexico’s migration agency said migrant arrivals “had decreased significantly” from December to present day amid the stepped-up enforcement.

After Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador agreed in mid-December to crack down on migration, Mexican authorities increased efforts to stop migrants from riding on the top of trains and sent migrants in northern Mexico to the south of the country by plane and bus.

In Piedras Negras on Sunday, Mexican National Guard troops guarded the river across from the hillocks of concertina wire on the U.S. side.

Migrants outside a nearby shelter said arrivals had plummeted in January. Some said they were trying to enter the U.S. using the CBP One app, a Biden administration program that opens 1,450 slots per day for migrants to approach a legal border crossing and request entry.

Honduran Ever Moises Garcia, 26, said he decided to head north because he could not support his two young children. He was deported by Mexican authorities four times, but tried again and reached Piedras Negras, where he has stayed for nearly two months while he tries to land a CBP One appointment, he said.

He said he would cross illegally but that the risk is too high.

"There have been many, many immigrants who have crossed," he said, "and they send them back to their country."

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Eagle Pass, Texas; Additional reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Monterrey, Mexico; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis)

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