Texas, Texas, Texas, bless your heart. I have mixed feelings about you through the current immigrant crisis on the border, the epicenter of which is the West Texas town of El Paso. Are you the victim you claim to be, or an accomplice after the fact?
Because my mom was raised in the Rio Grande Valley and my oldest daughter was born in Dallas, I’m in your debt. I consider you my second home after my native California. As such, I’ve always tried to shoot you straight.
So now Texas, I owe you an apology. Not 100% “it was all me and none of it was you” type of mea culpa. You’re not innocent in bringing about the current crisis as I’ve said before in other commentaries for Straight Arrow News. Among Texas employers in the average household, illegal immigrant labor is as common in the Lone Star State as blue bonnets and yellow roses, and just as popular. You can’t very well hold up a “no trespassing” sign in one hand, and a “help wanted” sign in another. People see through that kind of hypocrisy.
But I, too, I also have to step up and accept responsibility for being glib and not taking seriously the effect that having 10,000 to 12,000 migrants and refugees show up every single day is having on Texas border towns and cities. After all, I’m way over here in California, and El Paso or “El Chuco” as the locals call it, the shelters are full and thousands of people — many from South American countries such as Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador are sleeping on frigid streets. God bless the good folks who are bringing their visitors’ blankets, clothing, food and water.
In 2023 this drama is playing out in El Paso. But in 2014 and 2018, something similar happened downriver in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, where tens of thousands of migrants and refugees streamed in from Central American countries like Honduras and El Salvador. Once again, much of the country didn’t pay close enough attention to what was happening.
