Gov. Greg Abbott wants to build a border wall. South Texas landowners are divided over whether they want it.
BY COLLEEN DEGUZMAN | The Texas Tribune
What sold Gerardo Vargas on buying a ranch in Zapata County along the Rio Grande was the view from two 45-foot-tall cliffs that stood on 250-acre property, offering a view of both the river and the distant mountains around Monterrey more than 100 miles away.
From those cliffs, Vargas said he could hear fish splashing in the river and sometimes, someone on the Mexico side would be fishing and offer a friendly wave. Because the cliffs faced west, Vargas said, they offered a view of a “perfect sunset.”
But near the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to pave a road as part of border wall construction on Vargas’s ranch and bulldozed one of the cliffs. The construction also uprooted many of the old, tall mesquite trees on his property.
When President Joe Biden took office, construction on Rodriguez’s land stopped before any part of the wall was erected and he was relieved that he still had one cliff left. Earlier this month, however, Gov. Greg Abbott announced that Texas intends to build its own border wall to stem what he called a “tidal wave of illegal immigrants coming across the border, wreaking havoc in communities and residents who live here in Texas.”
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