If Congress ever manages to come to some kind of agreement on the issue of immigration reform, the chances are good that it will have to include a requirement involving the erection of fencing to wrap the great majority of the almost 2,000-mile Southwest border of the United States in tall steel columns.
However, the measure would effectively double down with a strategy that the people from US Customs and Border Protection remain unconvinced even works at all in stopping illegal immigrants, and many property owners in the southernmost tip of Texas are appalled at the notion that the US government might seize yet more land for the scheme, especially given that the last fence construction spree already resulted in hundreds of people losing land.
“I’m still totally against it,” insists Aleida Garcia, one of the residents of Los Ebanos that lost their land five years ago, back in 2008. Garcia notes that more agents patrolling the area would probably be more effective, not to mention at least create more employment opportunities. The lawmakers in the region appear to share those sentiments, with three immigration reform-supporting Democratic Congressman nonetheless flatly refusing to support a bill that hinges on the construction of yet more fences.
“It doesn’t do what proponents think it does,” notes Filemon Vela from Brownsville, who handed in his resignation from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus rather than be forced into giving his support to the idea. “Building more fence makes no sense to me.”