DEL RIO, Texas — Town residents are fed up with the situation in their small city of 35,000 people, which became ground zero for the crisis at the southern border last week.
Most locals lamented the situation at the Del Rio-Acuna International Bridge was completely preventable. They argue the Haitians illegally crossing the Rio Grande River, which separates the United States and Mexico, began earlier this year but was not addressed by the federal government, paving the way for this unprecedented surge of people coming up the riverbanks every hour over the past week.
“It all stinks,” said Dave Kinsey, an appliance store owner known around town as ‘Big Dave.’ “We got to feed them. They’re spending thousands of dollars to feed them. That’s coming out of our pocket.”
“They’ve been dealing with it now for quite some time now,” said Tommy Zata, who works in business administration. “It’s just, I guess in the last week or so, it’s just exponentially that they gathered here.”
Kristen Williams, a resident of 31 years who lives in the county, said she’s “never seen it like this” and is concerned about how the thousands of migrants under the bridge could affect her children’s safety if law enforcement officers lose control.
“They need to go back to where they came from,” Williams said. “We don’t have the resources in this town. We don’t have the resources in the United States.”
Several miles from the port of entry, Del Rio’s downtown has been overtaken by state and federal law enforcement over the past week, whose vehicles are almost always within eyeshot, day and night. IHOP is packed every morning before 8 a.m. as law enforcement comes in by the dozens to fill up before heading out to the bridge.
Residents collectively agreed the situation at the bridge and the release of migrants into their region and town are not directly affecting their daily lives. If anything, it has added a few more cars to drive-thru lines at fast-food restaurants and quelled their fears about the migrant camp falling out of control.
Troopers are trained to handle crowd control and are bracing for any rioting incident at the bridge, Texas DPS South Region spokesman Lt. Christopher Olivarez said in an interview Sunday.
“The security presence that’s there has been maintaining things very well,” Zata said, referring to the Texas DPS troopers along the river since Saturday. “The only areas impacted more are the rural areas like the farms and ranches, if you will, that have been affected with the crossings. In town proper, not so much.”
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Dale Reed has lived in Del Rio for 44 years and is a retired National Weather Service employee.
“It’s bad news, bad news. The only person that has to be responsible is the current president,” Reed said.
Welder Freddy Castro described the bridge as being in “total chaos,” agreeing that the Biden administration has managed it “very poorly.”
“It’s affecting the community more at the border — the international bridge. A lot of people here come and go, and a lot of people from over there [in Mexico] work over here, and a lot of businesses have workers from over there, so that affects them a lot,” Castro said.
Over the weekend, the federal government shut down the port of entry that connects Del Rio to Acuna. The closest port of entry to get into Mexico is more than 55 miles away.
Others worried the greater impact was being felt by landowners outside of town.
Ronald Thomas said it was “certainly not good for America,” and the country cannot “afford” it. Thomas owns lakefront property and said items have been stolen from his ranch. He has caught observed groups walking through his land thanks to game cameras set up near deer feeders.
“The ones I saw on the game cam were in regular street clothes. They did have backpacks,” Thomas said.
The migrant camp has dropped to fewer than 6,000 people, compared to more than 15,000 on Saturday. But with tens of thousands of more Haitian migrants headed to the U.S. from South America, the hot spot town may not see the police pull out any time soon.
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“We’re going to spend the money to take them back [to Haiti]. They’re just going to try to come back,” Kinsey said. “The way that I look at is if Biden wants them here so bad, OK, let’s just go to Haiti and take over Haiti. The United States should take over Haiti. Yeah, we’ll take them back, and then we can say, ‘You’re in the United States, just like Puerto Rico.'”
“It’s sad what’s happening to them,” Castro said. “But there’s got to be more stuff to do. A lot of people from Mexico want to come to the country as well, but they’re doing it the right way, the legal way, they’re paying fees and all of that.”
