Texas Border Cities React to Donald Trump's Border Wall

[highplainsdem]

Source: WSJ

DALLAS—Some officials in Texas’ border communities, who have benefited from stronger economic ties with Mexico, reacted with concern to news that President Donald Trump would announce plans Wednesday to speed construction of a border wall.

“Building walls and alienating our neighbors will damage the American economy and create job losses—which completely runs afoul of Trump’s campaign themes,” said Judge Veronica Escobar, a Democrat and the chief executive of El Paso County, a Texas border region.

-snip-

Officials in Texas border cities and towns said they welcomed enhanced border security, but that constructing a wall was impractical and unnecessary, because of existing fencing in some areas and natural barriers like the Rio Grande in others. And some here said that a more secure border could be achieved through a combination of expanded fencing, more Border Patrol officers and virtual technology.

-snip-

The state’s border cities also worry about Mr. Trump’s promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has benefited Texas. The state is the nation’s top exporter of goods, federal data show, and trade with Mexico is a critical cog in the economy here. From 1994, when Nafta took effect, to 2015, exports from the state to Mexico grew 236%, according to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-border-cities-react-to-donald-trumps-border-wall-1485356419

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Of course if all they do is enhance border security, the reasonable policy, President Putinpuppet won't get a chance to pose wearing a hardhat next to his brand new wall -- which you can bet his own companies, or at least his cronies, will profit from.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Walls are the last thing America would do, this is not America anymore,

and I sure hope 3rd party voters are happy, that this is what they wanted.

[underpants]

2. Maybe it's just me but it's like Snowflake didn't think this out

Unneeded unwanted expensive and hurts the economy

[atreides1]

3. I'm confused

Didn't Texas, go for Trump?

[IronLionZion]

11. It's a big state

with a large Democratic minority. It should become a swing state eventually as it gets more diverse

[TexasBushwhacker]

14. Yes, but South Texas is quite blue

Furthermore, exports from Texas to Mexico since NAFTA went up by $16B and created 190K jobs. A big wall and gutting NAFTA will hurt Texas bigly.

[Madam45for2923]

16. Yep south is more democratic voting, look at Texas map here!

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/texas

[Javaman]

4. I live in Texas and all I want to say is this...

where the fuck were these boarder cities when the orange menace starting blathering about this bullshit?

me thinks, they "didn't actually believe him".

I have been tracking this crap since that fucking orange jerk first announced this complete pile of bullshit and the rampant moron right wing were all about building this fucking stupid ass fantasy wall.

now that the rubber meets the road, they are all suddenly concerned.

Un-fucking-believable.

[LeftInTX]

6. I hit a paywall with this specific article,

but there have been concerns all along. Some ranchers on the river want the wall (I think between Del Rio to Laredo) but many in the lower Rio Grande Valley don't want it.

Inland ranchers prefer the wall over those bordering the river. Duh, it's not in their backyard! These inland ranches tend to be quite large which makes it harder for ranchers to keep trespassers out.

The border basically voted for Hillary. Turn out along the border was much higher than any other election! (This is huge progress) The border has always had very low voter turn out. So progress was made.

[Blue_Adept]

7. There were articles about it - but

the fear by others around the country of others from other countries was considered more important. The fear of immigrants, legal and undocumented, by those in Iowa got a whole lot more attention.

[Initech]

10. Fucking mind boggling isn't it?

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. Look at the map

Almost every county along the border went for Clinton. The bigger cities, Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso were blue too.



McCain got 55%, Romney 57% and Trump got 52%.

[cbdo2007]

5. They also need to consider the ad revenue of putting billboards up all over the wall for Trump hotel

[Generator]

8. My concern

I am so paranoid I don't want a wall for the people that are already here. What if WE need to get out. No walls. It never works.

[forgotmylogin]

9. I just watched Cristela Alonzo's Standup special on Netflix

While I don't condone illegal immigration, she puts the wall firmly in perspective. "Doesn't he know we use tunnels now?"

And (paraphrased) He builds the wall to California. What's left? Ocean. We'll swim. He's turning us into triathletes: running, climbing, swimming...

She repeats an abridged version of the bit on The View, and also talks about her experience at the March. Her standup on Netflix is side-splitting, and provides her personal insight into the immigrant experience, so catch it if you can.

[safeinOhio]

12. Trump needs to put up the money

himself, he has gazillions. He can then have Mexico pay him back.

[alarimer]

13. They tried to do this during the Bush administration.

And in fact built some of these walls, much to the dismay of people living there. In some cases, the wall crosses private land (because you can't actually put a wall in the middle of a river) and locks people on the wrong side. They also exempted the wall from environmental laws like environmental impact reviews and the like. I expect Trump's wall to do the same.

Some of the "wall" is merely cameras, drones and surveillance rather than an actual wall.

What it was meant to do was to reduce illegal immigration. What it ACTUALLY did was cause needless deaths by driving people to cross in the middle of the desert.

So it was cruel but also unnecessary because illegal immigration is a net 0.

[rainbow4321]

15. They are probably like the CA/Mexico border city I lived in

The city, El Centro, CA, had the highest unemployment rate in the country. But to look at the city itself it was flourishing. Huge mall, always packed. So many high end stores in the city shopping district.
I asked locals about it. They said those stores and the local economy were supported by Mexican citizens who came over to shop. While our prices are higher, there were brands not available in Mexico.
At the same time, many US snowbirds come down and use Mexico for cheap medical care/medications/dental work. Mexican side border towns are filled with dental clinics all vying for American dollars.

I remember seeing 2 elderly US men high fiving each other when they talked about how they were Trump supporters. They were at a US resort a mile from the border in Arizona that I was visiting.

No doubt in my mind that they were medical tourists, as were many others there at the resort.
Stopping the flow of people thru the borders will hurt cities on both sides of the border. I imagine the same holds true for Texas.

I knew of at least one person at work who lived in Mexico but worked in the US. Cheaper living in Mexico with higher US pay.

A number of our patients lived in Mexico but were US citizens (with US healthcare benefits/Medicare, etc..). When they would get sick, they would have a Mexican ambulance literally bring them to the border where a US ambulance would pick them up and bring them to US hospitals.

US border city residents should be scared. Their local economies are about to crash. The rest of the country should be scared because all those Mexican workers who come here to work in the agriculture industry in the fields are about to be severely impacted. Good luck finding Americans to fill those roles. Higher prices for food will kick in soon after drumf stops Mexican citizens from coming here.