Why southern border towns are frustrated by the immigration debate
The U.S.-Mexico border as described on the campaign trail or seen on the news can easily create a picture of all border towns as lawless and chaotic.
But the reality is more nuanced, as a CBS News crew learned during a 1,600-mile trip from McAllen, Texas, to the California coast.
Laredo, Texas, was ranked as one of the safest cities in the state, according to analysis from the CBS News data team. Mayor Victor Trevino said his city is not the Wild West he often sees depicted.
drug smuggling hotspot. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the 2024 fiscal year, 66% of the fentanyl seized on the U.S.-Mexico border happened in the Tucson sector, which covers all the border ports in Arizona.
Donald Huish, mayor of Douglas, Arizona, was in favor of the bipartisan Senate border bill that has been front and center of the presidential campaign. The bill died after criticism from former President Donald Trump.
“It would help us, because we would’ve had more Border Patrol agents,” Huish said. “…I can understand why people didn’t like the entire bill, but why stop talking about it?”
Frustration is everywhere along the border, including for Mark Dannels, sheriff of Arizona’s Cochise County, who struggles with the influx of drug mules and human smugglers.
Dannels says he isn’t necessarily optimistic or pessimistic about Cochise’s future, just uncertain.
“It’s more of an unknown because politics and the country is so divided right now,” Dannels said.
More
Source: cbsnews.com