Cross-Border Craziness

This just in: Three Democratic Brewster County precincts and one Republican precinct approved on March 4 resolutions opposing the federal government's planned fence/wall hybrid for the U.S.-Mexico border. (For a rundown of other pissed-off Texas precincts that passed anti-wall resolutions during the caucuses and conventions, see last week's "Frontera Residents Blast 'Frankenfence.'")

One Democratic resolution calls for a moratorium on wall construction; another says, "Renounce and remove all legislature dealing with the approval and construction of the United States-Mexico Border Wall." A third, implicitly anti-divider resolution calls for reopening Big Bend National Park's bridgeless border crossing at Boquillas/Rio Grande Village, which the feds closed shortly after 9/11.

Republican Party Chair Hal Craig said he had a single precinct approve an oppositional resolution. "Some of the people just said it's not appropriate to build a wall," he said. So why are border-wall sentiments of frontera residents so contradictory of Congress' votes approving the divider? As Juan Manuel Calderón Jaimes, the Mexican consul in Tucson, Ariz., put it when interviewed by essayist Luis Alberto Urrea, "The entire border is ruled by one thing: north and south. And that is the politics of stupidity."

What he means by "north and south" is that many border residents view the area as a region encompassing both sides of the Rio Grande. Think Brownsville-Matamoros greater metropolitan area, or the El Paso-Juarez metroplex, for example. In that context, raising a "Frankenfence" is seen as stupid by many Texas-Mexico border dwellers. "Not much thought was given to this fence," Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada said. "We're not at war with Mexico. We believe in commerce for security. ... We believe this fence goes against everything we stand for."