Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

TexasTowelie

(111,314 posts)
Tue Oct 10, 2017, 03:10 AM Oct 2017

How DPS's Occupation of a Border Town May Have Crippled Its Economy

Are Texas state troopers damaging the economy of a small town near the border? Eloy Vera suspects as much. He's a county judge in the Rio Grande Valley, hard on the border with Mexico. Vera started lambasting the Department of Public Safety in 2015 – though his main beef back then was not economic. Instead, he and his neighbors complained that when they were out driving, they got hassled to no end by troopers.

The judge's bailiwick is Starr County, an arrowhead-shaped stretch of land about an hour west of McAllen that abuts the Rio Grande River. Starr is mostly rural, including Judge Vera's ranch. His property teems with deer, many of which he has shot and mounted in his office at the county courthouse. There, stuffed animals stare glass-eyed at the public, their antlers spiking in multi-horned racks. Sitting at his desk, Vera rails against the myriad ways that DPS has made local folks' lives miserable, and maybe has even eaten into the municipal treasury. More on that later. First, some community background.

Starr's county seat and biggest town is Rio Grande City, population about 14,000. A bridge behind the local H-E-B connects to Camargo, the Mexican sister community, and Border Patrol vehicles roam the U.S. side of the riverbank and H-E-B's big parking lot. One thing they're looking for is drugs. The area has a notorious, decades-long reputation for narco-trafficking. Agents also troll for undocumented immigrants, and sometimes they stop American citizens by mistake – like a woman, the wife of a taquería owner in town, who was starting up her truck last spring after going shopping, only to be hemmed in by green-uniformed officers and questioned. They left her alone after she said she was native born, but redirected their attention to a passenger, the woman's mother-in-law. She happened to be undocumented, and was shipped to a detention center in Laredo.

In Rio Grande City it's not surprising that outsiders' perceptions of local people's immigration status might be erroneous. Over 98% of the population are Latinos, with the great majority of Mexican descent. White people are practically nowhere to be seen – except for Border Patrol agents and DPS troopers.

Read more: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2017-10-06/how-dpss-occupation-of-a-border-town-may-have-crippled-its-economy/

Latest Discussions»Region Forums»Texas»How DPS's Occupation of a...