For Texas ranchers living along border fence, talk of an illegal crossing crisis is exaggerated

[DonViejo]

Many Rio Grande Valley residents have farmed land along the border fence for decades. On hot summer days, they mow their lawns and repair trucks, take care of ailing relatives and sip coffee at local convenience stores. What they don’t do, they say, is worry about a crisis at the border.

BY DAVID YAFFE-BELLANY JUNE 30, 2018 1 PM

BROWNSVILLE — Crisis. Siege. Chaos.

These are words the president and some of his supporters have used to describe the situation at the United States' southern border, where every day migrants illegally cross into the country from Mexico.

Jaime Portillo, one of the ranchers who farm the land near the U.S.-Mexico border, uses a different word to characterize the last few months in the Rio Grande Valley: “igual” — the same as ever.

To the people living on the Old Military Highway, which stretches for 100 miles along the border fence from Brownsville to Rio Grande City, the Trump administration's portrait of a dangerous frontier rocked by increasing numbers of illegal crossings feels foreign.

Politicians “kind of exaggerate the whole thing,” said Arnoldo Farias Sr., 85, a retired schoolteacher who lives down the road from Portillo outside Brownsville. “They want to see action, you know. And there’s not so much around here.”

Portillo and Farias are among the ranchers, truck salesmen and retirees who live on the Old Military Highway. Many of these border residents have farmed land along the fence for decades, working on ranches their parents owned before them. They lead peaceful lives that only occasionally intersect with the undocumented immigrants crossing the border from Mexico. On hot summer days, they mow their lawns and repair machinery, take care of ailing relatives and sip coffee at local convenience stores.

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https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/30/texas-rio-grande-valley-ranchers-border-immigration/