The Town on the Wrong Side of the Fence

 

The United States built a fence along the Mexican border, but the mud along the Rio Grande is too soft to support a fence. In Brownsville, Texas, that means it was built a couple of miles north the river, which cuts off an American neighborhood from the rest of the U.S.

The residents are not happy.

“I’ll say right off the bat that I’m a wingnut – I believe in hard work and I believe our border needs to be secure,” says Debbie Loop, whose 15-acre citrus farm is on both sides of the fence. “But when they signed this fence into law, nobody stopped to think Texas isn’t Arizona or California. Our border does not run dirt to dirt. Any idiot could have told them that. My grandchildren now live on the wrong side. Who is going to protect them? Who protects me when I’m in my orchards after dusk? I just want to work hard and earn a living. But they’ve changed this place forever.”

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