EAGLE PASS, Tex. —Gabriel Bustamante Garza crosses in and out of Mexico so often that the border checkpoint here seems more like a tollbooth than an international boundary.
Garza is a U.S. citizen who lives in this small border city, but his whole family, and the electronics factory he runs, are just over the Rio Grande in the booming Mexico city of Piedras Negras. What used to be a 45-minute commute has jumped to as many as three hours this week, as U.S. border authorities reassigned officers from the legal crossing to other areas in an attempt to arrest Central Americans entering the country illegally.
While the border delays have Garza worried that his trucks might miss crucial delivery deadlines, a bigger concern looms: If President Trump ever were to follow through on his threats to close the U.S. border — now, a year from now, or at any point — it could also cause his factory to close. Shutting the door between these symbiotic sister communities probably would force many Americans out of work and out of daily routines.
“The past few days have been horrible,” Garza, 59, said in an interview at his local bank. “If you close the border, Eagle Pass will die, totally die.”...
For Eagle Pass, just the threat of closure is frightening, as cutting off access to Mexico would be akin to dropping a bomb on its economy. Thousands of jobs, billions of dollars and nearly half of the city’s budget depend on fast-flowing goods and services across the twin international bridges that span the Rio Grande here.
A closure would resonate in other border cities from California to Texas, but it also would ripple through cities across the United States, where businesses and consumers rely on crucial Mexican imports, including car parts and salad ingredients...
Here on the Texas border, dozens of American children who live in Piedras Negras line up each morning to cross so they can attend school in Eagle Pass. Other residents travel to Mexico to care for elderly parents who enjoy more affordable medical and dental care and home health aides. Dozens visit the mall in Eagle Pass or the barbershops in Piedras Negras, where a haircut and a straight-razor shave are a fraction of the price.
“If we don’t have the operation of our bridges, this city will not function, at all,” Eagle Pass Mayor Ramsey English Cantu said. “Without the bridges, our city is paralyzed.”
So what? I'll have to do without some avocados for a while. The illegal immigrants are criminal trash that need to be deported ASAP. Mexico could do its part but won't and if cheap labor is so great why won't they stay in Mexico or go to an African country? Of course, RW and other libertardians have not proven that one of a them is a libertarian or comes from a functional high trust society which would necessary for even limited government concept to be viable.
ReplyDeleteRW refused to acknowledge that the illegals are mostly low IQ destroying private property and have nothing of offer us.
Hello, whoever you are who calls himself a 'manager'. Manager of what?
DeleteAnyway, you may be prepared to be without avocados for a while, if that's what your puny mind can conceive when thinking about the economic activity along the border, the billion plus trade happening every DAY. It's not only avocados being traded between buyers and sellers. Every single American benefits from the trade of finished and semi-finished industrial and consumer goods, fabrications, services, agricultural products and meats. And Mexicans benefit as well, by the access to cheaper goods that trade with the U.S. affords them, thus increasing their standard of living to levels never before seen. While your nutty "Oh I am So Superior To Them 'Cause I'm Snow White" conceit is amusing in the same sense that a person driving a nail up his nose is amusing, your economic view is so constrained and narrow to the point it is inconceivable such nonsense comes from a fully-functioning mind, that I laugh at the idea that you can discern people's IQ's. You are a great example of someone who lacks self-awareness.
The US became a low-trust society and blew through "limited government" well before large-scale immigration from Latin America. Those who came from a western European heritage have done a fine job making the US less free.
DeleteThese border town economies are like a heat engine driven by the various differentials due government imposed conditions on each side.
ReplyDeleteWhat you stated makes absolutely no sense at all. It's like you're trying to illustrate a point by using an allegory that does not fit what is happening at all. It's like you're trying to say that if not for government intervention, people would not trade with each other across that border. If that's not what you're saying, then say it in a way that sounds less stupid, please.
DeleteYes and Jimmy its always woe is me for taking advantage of a favorable profit margin from South of the border employees and I am sure a less Onerous regulatory environment. Cry me a river Garza
DeleteWithout government intervention those trucks would go directly from the factories in Mexico to deliver their products to the customers. There would be no stop off in a facility in a Texas border town. Even if a distribution center were needed it would be built next to the factory in Mexico. But thanks to government companies with factories in Mexico and customers in the USA need facilities, warehouses, terminals, etc in the USA close to the border.
DeleteWithout government intervention medical care and haircuts would be much more equal in cost on both sides of the border. US medical care and haircuts are expensive because of government. In the USA licensing, regulation, etc makes things more expensive by design.
Without government monopoly on policing the conditions with regards to crime in Mexico that make it so people who visit factories in Mexico stay in US border towns wouldn't exist. Mexico would be entirely safe for business, tourism, etc.
The border towns need the differentials caused by government to drive these trade situations. Without these government created differentials they would still trade but it would not be the same economies described in the article.