A friend from out-of-state recently suggested that the Cavalry - Dispatch make room for more coverage of the day-to-day captures and arrests that are happening in Kinney County. Yours truly might have been quietly kvetching about the self-imposed daily deadlines for this newsletter, and this person was suggesting that some time spent talking about a group captured here, or over there, would make it easy to satisfy a daily deadline.
For example, our reporting about possible mercenaries in Texas included a comment from a ranchwoman in Zavala County who felt her County leadership wasn’t doing enough to mitigate this crisis. A survey of Facebook accounts associated with community police and sheriff’s deputies in Zavala County might suggest otherwise. They seem to be quite busy arresting smugglers. The truth along the border can be murky. One imagines it would be simple enough to use factual statistics to support either assertion.
It would be easy to careen from illegal alien bust to illegal alien bust daily. The lowest-hanging of the low-hanging fruit associated with this ongoing crisis is the constant coverage of anonymous groups corralled by anonymous lawmen, escorted off to anonymous fates. This isn’t to say that it isn’t important to document this on some level. Not everyone reading those stories is aware of how steady and constant the flow is. They perhaps have never before seen pictures of illegal aliens stuffed into overheated tractor trailers and left to die. Or illegal aliens floating up from the bottom of the river, drowned and bloated, washed downstream from wherever it was they originally tried to cross and failed. So, yes, it is important to cover this steady flow. But it takes time. Money. Resources. Things I don’t actually have very much of, myself. One has trouble explaining this to well-meaning folk who are simply trying to help. Or at least, get me to shut up about daily deadlines.
To put it simply, I’d like to be able to focus on more unique aspects of this crisis. The way some folks online are analyzing photographs and suggesting some of what we’re seeing is being staged, perhaps. Or, what seems to be a bit of an awkward link between Non-Governmental Organizations and the potentially misguided wholesale settlement of illegal aliens in communities that never volunteered to host these new and sometimes difficult-to-serve populations.
That last is what makes the US border crisis an even bigger story than just “bad guys sometimes speed through town.” If only that was all that it was. If only the only care in Kinney County was “What’s hunting season gonna look like?” Sad fact is, Texas has been dealing with illegal immigration since before there was a Texas. Just ask Mexico. Yes yes, Stephen F. Austin had permission to bring his original settlers. Everybody that takes Texas History in 7th grade knows this. But, what’s glossed over is how many who came after were not welcome. The Mexican government wanted to keep them out, concerned about the demographics of the territory, but it was too far away and too expensive to do so in any real fashion. At one point, Texas was the only state in the U.S. that required schoolchildren to learn state history. It may still be the case.
The point is, this state has been living with illegal immigration for a long time. There are, for lack of a better word, “cultural shock-absorbers” already in place. Texans routinely consume a melange of different cultures, food, and music. Critics online accuse these NGO’s of enabling the illegal immigration by smoothing their illegal entry into the US, supporting and transporting them all over the country. Are there records of who is going where? How can these charities be certain everyone they transport is relatively harmless? What kind of insurance do they carry? Does State Farm, or Progressive, or whomever even know what kind of risks are really being taken here, and do their premiums reflect it? It seems a bit of a slippery slope. How long before any given Government can use un-elected and hard-to-hold-to-account NGO’s for nefarious purposes?
Don’t get it twisted, no one is suggesting that’s what’s happening here. It’s almost a certainty that nearly everyone involved in these efforts believes they’re only doing what is right, what is just, what is Christian. But does that make it wise? Or even ultimately to the good? Just what is good in a messy, murky situation like this anyway?
Look no further than the current mess in Afghanistan for an example of how good intentions are no guarantee of good results.