Dividing more than nations

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 28th. This is WORLD Radio and we thank you for listening. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: The little border town that gets big attention.

Here’s part two of a story we began yesterday.

WORLD Radio reporter Bonnie Pritchett on Eagle Pass, Texas, and the effect of illegal immigration on that community. Here’s the conclusion.

AUDIO: [Metal gate scraping open]

BONNIE PRITCHETT, REPORTER: The State of Texas has, essentially, taken control of Shelby Park—blocking access to the park from Mexico—and from Eagle Pass. Main Street once emptied into the park; now a chain-link fence and armed Texas National Guardsmen control access.

Annual city-wide events held at Shelby Park have been relocated.

Event coordinators planning to use the park’s unique proximity with Mexico to share the gospel had to move to a venue 8 miles away.

ABNER CHAVEZ: Franklin Graham is going to be here, February 28…

That’s Abner Chavez, a pastor at New Journey Church, one of the local churches partnering with the Billy Graham Evangelical Association for its Eagle Pass meeting of the God Loves You Frontera Tour.

CHAVEZ: And the plan was to, for him to preach, not only to the people of the community here in Eagle Pass, but also to the people of the community of Piedras Negras which is right across the river. They were going to set up speakers where the gospel was going to be shared to the Mexican side as well. So that's pretty sad, to be honest with you…

The border barriers have divided more than nations. Sisters Sophie Gallo and Ana Santleben admit their own families’ opposing political views are the source of heated arguments. Here’s Gallo.

SOFIA GALLO: But when it's over, it's over. We speak our minds. It's over with and then we move on and we get together for dinner.

Familial and community bonds can’t repair some fissures.

GALLO: And that's what I was telling you about the division in the city, which, you know, which I had never, never seen before in my entire life. You know, I work the elections, I see the division so much clearer now, which is sad, because it really has torn not only families apart, friends…

Real estate broker and former Eagle Pass mayor Jose Aranda questions Governor Abbott’s response to the border crisis.

ARANDA: What you see at Shelby Park was political…

Aranda points to the U.S. Senate immigration bill rejected days earlier by the Republican-controlled House.

ARANDA: But they don't want it because they say it's not a good plan. And I think it's a great start…

A Main Street store owner applauds the governor’s actions.

OWNER: If it wasn’t for the governor, just think - all those people New York, Chicago were going to be here? That would be a nightmare. So he followed the law…

In December, 250 thousand people—more than any month on record— crossed the U.S. southern border illegally.

Customs and Border Protection pulled agents from legal points of entry to help with processing. That required shutting vehicle entry into the U.S. on one of the international bridges in Eagle Pass - at the height of the Christmas shopping season.

Cowboy Corral and Claudia’s on Main Street, Eagle Pass, Texas Photo by Bonnie Pritchett

Cergio Marquez works at Cowboy Corral on Main Street, two blocks from the bridge.

CERGIO MARQUEZ: We sell Western wear clothes, hats, boots, belts.

The store smells like leather.

MARQUEZ: We've got more customers from Mexico. They come more by us because they say there's more quality. And we lost a lot of sales.

SOUND: [“Thank you.” Register tape]

Next door is Claudia’s, a floral craft and novelties store. Eighty percent of his customers are from Mexico. December sales plummeted when traffic on the international bridge ground to a crawl.

The effect on both cities wasn’t just economic.

Abner Chavez, and his wife Claudia also lead a congregation in Mexico—a congregation born off of New Journey Church.

ABNER CHAVEZ: So when we have to cross and they have to shut one of the bridges down. The crossing lines are extremely long, we have been in line to come back up to three hours and a half…

In early February residents feared another surge of people – this time from the north.

A loosely knit band of protesters calling themselves “God’s Army” caravanned to South Texas with calls to “Take Our Border Back.” Here’s convoy spokesman Craig Hudgins.

CRAIG HUDGINS: This is all about what's in everybody's gut knowing that if we don't do something, we're gonna lose our nation…

That rhetoric combined with media hype put some Eagle Pass residents on edge. Here’s Sofie Gallo.

GALLO: We didn’t know what to expect. They were saying, Oh, they're gonna come in, they're gonna burn this down and do this, all kinds of rumors were going on in the community…

That weekend someone did threaten to burn down the Customs and Border Protection migrant processing facility, forcing an evacuation.

Eagle Pass Police Chief Federico Garza prepared for the worst.

GARZA: This is the first weekend that we've been put on a high alert with the police department and the sheriff's office and all the other agencies surrounding us where we felt that it was a critical point of public safety to make sure that everyone involved were all going to be kept safe…

Not everyone felt safe. Jennifer Chacon’s bakery and cafe is just blocks from Shelby Park.

CHACON: I hate to say this, somebody compared it to it getting out of hand as it did when the George Floyd situation happened. And it's scary, because it destroyed communities, it destroyed cities…

By the end of the weekend, nothing was destroyed. Seven people were arrested.

Each person I interviewed believed something good could come from the troubles. Claudia Chavez, co-founder and co-pastor of New Journey Church with her husband Abner, put it this way:

CLAUDIA CHAVEZ: Everything that's happening around us, it's like labor pains, it’s like something that God is preparing this town. Because this town was a nobody town. Nobody knew about Eagle Pass. Now everybody knows about Eagle Pass. We need to be ready to receive the [SPANISH] the reaping what was planted or be able to pick up the harvest.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Bonnie Pritchett in Eagle Pass, Texas.

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