FAIR Visits Texas Border; Finds that State Efforts are Having a Significant and Positive Impact

In early February, a team of FAIR researchers headed to the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande River to get a firsthand look at the impact of the Biden Border Crisis. The area around Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas, has seen some of the highest levels of illegal immigration in recent months, as nationwide border encounters soared to a record 370,925 in December.

Not only has that section of the Rio Grande been ground zero for the illegal alien invasion, but it has also been the center of a confrontation between the State of Texas and the federal government, which has primary responsibility for controlling the border. In recent months, Texas has enacted new state laws designed to deter illegal aliens from entering the state, and taken action on its own to prevent them from crossing into Texas. Texas’ actions have sparked legal battles with open borders advocacy groups and with the Biden administration, which has staked out the position that not only won’t they enforce our nation’s immigration laws, but they will fight anyone else who tries to enforce them.

One of the key pieces in Texas’ strategy to deter illegal aliens from entering the state was enactment of SB 4, which authorizes state law enforcement agencies to arrest and detain people suspected of entering the country illegally. That law was set to go into effect on March 5. However, on February 29, a federal judge in Austin blocked implementation of SB 4 in response to a lawsuit brought by the Biden administration. That ruling was appealed by the state. On March 3, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay of the lower court’s order. On March 5, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay until March 13 while it considers whether it will allow the state to enforce Senate Bill 4. As this unfolds, updates will be posted on FAIR’s website.

The objective of FAIR’s visits to border hot spots is to educate the American public about what is going on and the impact that it is having on the lives of the people who live and work in those areas. As many traditional news media outlets either ignore the border crisis or present a biased picture of what is happening, FAIR has undertaken efforts to fill the void with our own reporting. With large numbers of followers on our social media outlets, FAIR has the ability to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and deliver important information to millions of people.

During our week in the region, we met with local law enforcement officials, county prosecutors, ranchers and other local residents, who recounted how their lives have been impacted over the past three years. Each of them ascribed the border crisis and its effects on the safety and security of their families and communities to the policies of the Biden administration. We encourage people to go to FAIR’s YouTube channel (enter Federation for American Immigration Reform in YouTube’s search engine) to view interviews conducted with local residents and officials, and scenes from the border region.

While the border crisis rages on, we also found evidence that Texas’ recent efforts to address it on its own are paying immediate dividends. Law enforcement and government officials, as well as local residents, report that the flow of illegal aliens into their communities has declined significantly in recent weeks due to new state laws and policies designed to deter and prevent illegal aliens from crossing into Texas.

In contrast to the thousands of people fording the Rio Grande each day as recently as December – many in broad daylight – we witnessed many fewer crossings during early February. The illegal crossings we saw and recorded occurred mainly at night and were smaller groups of working age men who were apprehended by Border Patrol agents.

At Shelby Park, a stretch of open land on the riverfront in Eagle Pass that just a few weeks earlier was being overwhelmed by migrants crossing illegally, we saw none. The park is where Texas has placed shipping containers, topped with razor wire, along the banks of the river and stationed National Guard troops at the park’s entrance to prevent the federal government from cutting the wire or removing the barriers. 

The Biden administration, which is fighting Texas’ efforts in court, has been given a green light to remove the barriers the state has put in place while the case makes its way through the legal system, but has largely refrained from doing so. According to a captain in the Texas Military Department we spoke with, members of the federal Border Patrol – who are themselves residents of these border communities – do not want to remove the barriers and have so far not been forced to do so by orders from Washington.

Fifty-five miles upriver from Eagle Pass, in Del Rio, another city that was being overwhelmed a few weeks earlier, we saw construction of Texas’ own border wall being built. The Texas-built wall is almost identical to the federal border wall construction that President Biden halted on his first day in office. The state-built wall is designed to protect the safety and security of the state and its residents. The statistics do not lie. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics show that in different Texas sectors of the border, illegal alien encounters are down between 23 percent and 69 percent. 

While this is all good news for Texas, it does not solve the national illegal immigration crisis unleashed by the Biden administration’s policies. The decline in illegal aliens crossing into Texas has been offset by sharp increases in illegal traffic across some other sections of the border. In the Tucson section of the border in Arizona, encounters are up over 182 percent. The criminal cartels that smuggle and traffic record numbers of people across our borders are simply taking the path of least resistance and avoiding Texas in favor of states that are more hospitable to illegal immigration.

What Texas has demonstrated, however, is that the current border crisis does not need to be an immutable fact. Contrary to the protestations of the Biden administration that nothing can be done about mass illegal immigration until Congress yields to their demands for mass amnesties and the creation of “new legal pathways” to accommodate everyone who wants to come here, it can be significantly curtailed.

Second, Texas has shown that states are not powerless to act when the federal government refuses to carry out its obligations to enforce our borders and immigration laws. Citizens in other states – even those that do not share an international border – can encourage their own state and local governments to emulate the steps Texas has taken in the absence of a meaningful effort by the federal government to address the problem. We urge FAIR members and supporters to contact our State and Local Engagement team to learn more about making an impact in your own communities.