Small Texas border city lands unsolicited spotlight in state-federal showdown over border security

As a ceremony with the blaring horns of mariachi musicians and rhythmic click-clack of horse hooves was about to begin, Mayor Rolando Salinas took a moment to reflect that his Texas border city is “more than just the immigration crisis that you see in the media.”

Cowboys and cowgirls from Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico, met Friday on one of their two international bridges to begin a weeklong ride to the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. The annual ritual is a point of local pride even as Eagle Pass draws wide attention for a showdown between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Biden administration over policing the border for illegal crossings.

“It shows you the connectivity between the United States and Mexico,” Salinas said as he observed final preparations for the annual ”La Cabalgata Internacional La Grande."

A few hours later, about 200 advocates were in a festive mood in the nearby town of Quemado ahead of a “Take Back Our Border” rally on Saturday. Connie Hinton, 56, said she showed up with her father from Austin, Texas, because "they need to get the people that are here illegally under control.”

The rally, which began with a trucker convoy in Virginia, was the latest sign of how an unprecedented migrant surge has shaken Eagle Pass, a sprawling town of warehouses and decaying houses that many big retailers have overlooked.

Mission: Border Hope, a group that helps migrants with travel plans after they are released by the Border Patrol with notices to appear in immigration court, has seen daily arrivals plummet to about 20 in recent days from highs of about 1,200, director Valeria Wheeler said.

The group's shelter closed ahead of Saturday's rally out of fears of unrest, even though rally organizers said they planned a peaceful protest.

Since early January, when Texas seized control of city's Shelby Park on the banks of Rio Grande, Eagle Pass has been at the center of an extraordinary turf war between Texas' Republican governor and the Democratic White House.

The park, made up of playing fields and a boat ramp at the end of the downtown business district and next to a golf course, is closed. U.S. Border Patrol agents are denied entry.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Friday that the governor's actions were “unconscionable.”

“It is unconscionable for a public official, to deliberately refuse to communicate, coordinate, collaborate with other public officials in the service of our nation’s interests, and to refuse to do so with the hope of creating disorder for others," Mayorkas said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Eagle Pass, with about 30,000 people, has become a major corridor for illegal crossings in recent years, making it a target for Abbott's enforcement. The community lies in the Border Patrol's Del Rio, Texas, sector, which is often the busiest of the agency's nine divisions on the Mexican border. In a record-high month of nearly 250,000 arrests for illegal crossings in December, Del Rio tallied 71,095 arrests, second only to Tucson, Arizona. San Diego in California was a distant third.

Visitors have struggled to find hotel rooms as the state law enforcement presence surges, with budget chains charging more than $200 per night, said Jorge Barrera, president of the Eagle Pass Chamber of Commerce.

“Obviously everybody likes growth,” Barrera said. “But when it’s a little too fast, it’s little bit hard for the community to be able to keep up.”

On Friday, there were no migrants to be found on the grassy fields of Shelby Park as Texas National Guard members unspooled razor wire atop train containers dotting the riverbanks. About 200 migrants arrived Thursday, according to the mayor, a sharp drop from December.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Border Patrol to cut razor wire that Texas installed, for now, but the state continues to erect more. The federal government argued the wire impedes its ability to patrol the border, including aiding migrants in need.

The Biden administration told the Supreme Court that “Texas has effectively prevented Border Patrol from monitoring the border” at Shelby Park. The state has defended the seizure, with Attorney General Ken Paxton saying he “will continue to defend Texas’s efforts to protect its southern border” against the federal government's attempts to undermine it.

At a ranch outside Eagle Pass where Abbott sympathizers gathered ahead of Saturday's rally, vendors sold Donald Trump-inspired MAGA hats and Trump flags. A homemade sign read, "The federal government has lost its way. Their job is to protect the states.”

Julio Vasquez, pastor of Iglesia Luterana San Lucas in Eagle Pass, said Abbott's campaign is a waste of money because migrants “come with empty hands asking for help.”

Alicia Garcia, a lifelong Eagle Pass resident who avoids Shelby Park but attended Friday's annual rodeo-themed festival at the nearby international bridge, questioned the value of Abbott's efforts because many asylum-seekers are released by U.S. authorities to argue their cases in immigration court.

“What’s with the show?” said Garcia, 38. "Better to just break everything down if they are still crossing.”

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed.