The map of the United States is getting closer and closer to the south.
Denver is almost 1,000 kilometers from Eagle Pass, a Texas city and the main point of entry for immigrants when they cross the Rio Grande. But the capital of Colorado is, according to its mayor, Mike Johnston, the most affected in the country proportionally by the arrival of undocumented people.
More than 40,000 have been sent in less than a year, "most cynically packed into buses and distributed with less attention than a truckload of Amazon packages, courtesy of Texas taxpayers," noted The Colorado Sun yesterday.
Athens (Georgia) is even further from Eagle Pass, at 1,200 kilometers. And yet, the city, the state and the nation have seen a terrible controversy ignite after the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student. She was found dead in a forest near the university campus. José Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan who entered illegally through the Mexican border in 2022, was arrested as the alleged perpetrator. Immediately, Donald Trump and his sycophants accused President Joe Biden of having innocent blood on his hands.
Despite the fact that, among other cities, New York takes the prize, which is the farthest point from Eagle Pass (2,000 kilometers) of the three. The Big Apple has received around 200,000 undocumented people after the spring of a couple of years ago. Mayor Eric Adams, who has gone so far as to say that immigration will end the city of immigration, to the blushes of most neighbors and liberal politicians, opened another debate when he proposed that this metropolis cease to have the "sanctuary city" poster for immigrants.
Adams, besieged by corruption investigations into people close to him, by his tendency to personal secrecy (he is very given to private parties) and by the inability to face the economic demand that involves caring for so many newly arrived and homeless people, has opted for populism .
Encouraged by the far-right press, including justices, the ex-police mayor wants the immigration enforcement services to operate in the city of skyscrapers, something unusual, after several cases of violence perpetrated by undocumented immigrants.
So Eagle Pass, so far yet so close. Immigration has become the main concern of Americans and is consolidating as the most relevant issue regarding the November elections. Even Biden himself is trying to get an executive order to cut the rights of undocumented immigrants and speed up deportations.
The number of border apprehensions grew from 1.86 million in fiscal year 2021 to 2.5 million in 2022 and a similar number in 2023.
The president and former president, in whose language there is only one word invasion, starred in visits to the Texas border territory on Thursday. Biden, in Brownsville, and Trump, in Eagle Pass.
Apart from the rhetoric of Trump, who also did not know how to stop the issue and who has sabotaged a pact between the two parties for electoral gain (not to be left without his favorite verse from the Apocalypse), the true architect of this anti-immigrant frenzy is due to Greg Abbott, the far-right governor of Texas,
The idea of “packaging” immigrants originated in Arizona, but Abbott has made it his own. Like the Chinese drop, the Texas governor has not stopped sending buses to what he disqualifies as liberal cities in the United States and, instead of looking for legal solutions, he has spread the crisis across the national geography.
And he, proud as the greatest exponent against the Democratic Government, even challenges the Supreme Court. Last month it decided in favor of the Biden Administration and allowed the federal government to temporarily remove the wires that Abbott ordered to be installed surrounding the slope of the Rio Grande, due to the condition of the border in Washington. Like who hears rain. Some take it out and Abbott puts it back in, pending the final resolution of the case.
He is not alone, many residents have shown their complete conviction of the need for the yarn and the owners of land close to the river collaborate in the installation. Others, however, are part of the lawsuit against the governor for placing buoy barriers on the riverbed and preventing immigrants from reaching the soil of the United States, considering it an attempt on the lives of people trying to cross.
The increase in immigrants has had another impact on the area directly affected. The emergency services, from firefighters to ambulances, have seen how the amount of assistance dissipated. Rescuers in Eagle Pass admit they are traumatized by the sight of so many parents drowning trying to keep their children alive in Rio Grande traffic.
