Border standoff between Biden administration and Texas sparks frustration in Eagle Pass
Eagle Pass, Texas, has become a main stage for the national political drama over migrants crossing the border. It has residents angry and officials worried.
EAGLE PASS, Texas — Juanita Martinez walked up to the closed gate of Shelby Park Tuesday afternoon and started an argument with a Texas National Guard member. The park was closed to the public, the young soldier said, for “safety and security.”
“Safety from what?” Martinez replied.
Martinez, the chair of the Maverick County Democratic Party, is one of many locals angry that their town has become the main stage in a national political drama. In December, record numbers of migrants crossed the Rio Grande, tens of thousands of them through Shelby Park, a 47-acre expanse of grass and ballfields on the banks of the river. In response, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered his forces to take over the park, mainly to deny access to the Border Patrol, which had previously used the park to process arriving migrants. But that also closed the park to the public.
Now Abbott is planning to use the park for yet another political purpose: He’s scheduled to hold a news conference on Sunday with 14 other governors who’ve backed him in his standoff with the federal government, including Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Iowa’s Kim Reynolds.
In Martinez’s view, Abbott’s border security measures — the troops, the barbed wire, the shipping containers, the buoys in the river — have done nothing to deter migrants, and December’s record crossings are the proof.
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