We begin today with President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The border has been secured. Millions have left of been deported. And last year saw the largest drop in violent crime on record. But there’s one impact you may not have heard much about. In American border towns that rode the illegal immigration surge, jobs are now left unfilled and checkout lines and city budgets are emptying out. Today, we report from Texas on the economic slump that’s following the boom.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Grocery store owner Felix Chavez has spent the better part of five decades building this business in the small border town of Edinburg, Texas.

Sharyl: How many stores do you have now?

Felix Chavez: We have eight stores, eight grocery stores and one convenience store.

Each year, he says, sales have climbed. That is, until the current crackdown on illegal immigration.

Sharyl: What have you noticed if anything?

Chavez: The last year has really affected our sales. We have seen drops anywhere between 10 to 12 percent. Also, the labor force, where we used to employ around 550 employees, right now we have dropped down to about 450.

Sharyl: Because you don’t have people to hire or you don’t need as many people?

Chavez: We don’t need as many people. And also there’s a labor decrease, you know. There’s not as many people available, you know, applying or people are just, you know, not applying or they’re afraid to work, they’re afraid to go out. But we have experienced, you know, a shortage in the labor force.

The hard truth is: a sizable chunk of the economy in America’s border towns rode the wave of the illegal immigrant surge. And now, they’re feeling the pain.

Sister Norma Pimentel (December 2021): What you see here in this room, which is the main room that we have is in this area right here is for the newly arrivals.

Five years ago, Sister Norma Pimentel showed us the Catholic Charities shelter in the border town of McAllen, Texas. It was bursting at the seams.

Pimentel: I would say, maybe in 2019, very close to have a thousand people a day.

Sharyl: That’s a lot.

Pimentel: Aha.

Today, the same building is empty.

Sharyl: Was it a sudden drop off or a gradual slow decline?

Pimentel: It was pretty much very sudden, you know?

She says Catholic Charities is back to its pre-crisis rhythm, assisting Meals on Wheels and helping illegal immigrants within the community. But money is tight. During the Biden years and the big illegal immigration surge, local Catholic Charities got more than $2 billion in taxpayer money. Most of that’s gone, and private donations are down sharply.

Pimentel: At the peak of the time when people were coming in great numbers, like, in 2019 and throughout the whole, I would say, 10, 11 years that we were, since 2014, so many people from everywhere were reaching out to be part of and helping out. And so, we were receiving a lot of donations, a lot of contributions to support this effort to help humanity, you know? And so that is obviously not the evidence anymore in the news that this is happening. So, the numbers, percentage of people actually donating has diminished a lot.

For border towns, the economic ripples extend far into the community. Richard Cortez is an elected official in Hidalgo County, Texas.

Richard Cortez: It’s estimated that in my county, we have at least, about, I’m gonna say 10, 15, maybe as high as 20% of our people are here that are not legal citizens. So I knew it would have a huge impact.

Sharyl: Go down the short list with a brief description of some of the sectors or areas where you think there’s been an impact.

Cortez: Well, we’ll start with construction. Many of our construction workers, are here as non-citizens that are working. And today, you know, we’re starting to see a big impact of that. So construction is one that hit the hardest. Our agricultural community, you know, our economy here was largely agricultural based, agri-based. So you have to harvest your products. Many of the, of the farmers just, you know, didn’t wanna put any crops in the ground because they were concerned about harvesting those crops. Hospitality, you know, the people that clean the homes that or the rooms, works in the kitchen, things of this nature, they are having problems in hiring people. Just small businesses, you know, small businesses that only have four or five employees: maybe two of them were here illegally. So now that you lose two, you don’t have a full load of people. So it’s really having a very harsh time for us.

This massive tent center in nearby Donna, Texas was constructed during the peak. It covered 185,000 square feet on 40 acres of city-owned property.

This is what it looks like today.

Sharyl (on-camera): In its heyday, about 700 Border Patrol agents worked here. They processed more than 600,000 illegal immigrants from 90 countries. The economic impact was significant. The lease and utilities alone provided the city of Donna more than a million dollars a year about 8% of its entire budget.

Jared Ashby is the top Border Patrol official in charge of the Rio Grande Valley sector in South Texas.

Jared Ashby: At one time the U.S. government and specifically the U.S. Border Patrol contracted out numerous facilities across the country to help detain and then process illegal aliens. Now that the flow has reduced by 95%, we’re used to, we would hold thousands or up to 10,000 plus in different holdings across the U.S. Now we’re at hundreds. So a 95% reduction, there is no longer a need for those detention facilities or those temporary facilities like the Donna facility.

Sharyl: I assume all of the contractors that were helping and making money by servicing these facilities, those contracts have ended, I suppose. I mean, that’s money that now isn’t going to them.

Ashby: Yes, ma’am. That is correct. So without the need of those facilities, some of those facilities were in the tens of millions of dollars per month for the taxpayers, and that is at a savings for U.S. taxpayers now.

That’s an important point. Overall, analysts say the tightened southern border has delivered a huge windfall for American taxpayers. Some estimates put the total number of forced and self-deportations under the current Trump administration at more than three million. Nobody can say for sure, but savings are estimated at around $30 billion a year — counting the costs of prison, education, health care, enforcement, and more.

As much of America cheers on the changes, some in border communities are wondering what’s next.

Sharyl: On the other side, there is widespread support in much of America for cracking down on illegal immigration. So what are your thoughts on that, sort of balancing the interests and understanding the people who have security concerns and other worries?

Cortez: So if we have a mixed bag of immigrants, some are good and some are bad, then I will ask the question: Do you want to keep the good ones and get rid of the bad ones? That makes sense to me. So to me, that’s the process that we need to go through out of the people that are here already. Which ones do we wanna keep and which ones do we wanna get rid of? And I think that’s something that Congress needs to be doing. And that’s where comprehensive immigration reform needs to, needs to come in. They’re the ones that make the rules.

Sharyl: Is this the new normal? Will everybody adjust?

Chavez: Well, we hope to someday, you know, go back to normality. But we understand also that we might just have to get used to the idea that it might not come back and just have to be better prepared, you know, to keep up.

Built on a broken system, the economies of some border towns are now dealing with fewer customers, thinner workforces, and tighter budgets trying to find new ways to adjust to a national policy shift.

Sharyl (on-camera): For more on this story, check out my podcast Full Measure After Hours wherever you like to listen.

Watch the video here.

The post (WATCH) Border Policy appeared first on Sharyl Attkisson.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to Sharyl Attkisson as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More