The Border – Ed Warner

The Last Supper and a Touch of Venice

As you pass along a main street in the border town of Douglas, you see a sign in a window: “The Last Supper.” You assume it’s telling you that this is the last time you will eat in Douglas or maybe that it’s the last time you will want to eat in Douglas. But neither is the case. It refers to the Biblical Last Supper when Christ and the twelve apostles dined together. Behind the window is an array of paintings and sculptures – 2,500 altogether – that depict that last gathering before the next day’s crucifixion and the birth of Christianity. The event is portrayed in astonishing variety by artists, plain and grand, from all over the world.

What is all this doing in dusty, sleepy Douglas? It was a momentary impulse, says collector Eric Braverman: “My gift to Douglas and the border, which get a bad rap.” True enough since so much attention is focused on drugs and immigration. This is a diversion and then some. Get your mind on the eternal. It was also an impulse – an epiphany – that started the collection in the first place. As a youngster, Braverman saw a life-like model of the Last Supper and couldn’t get it out of his mind – for decades as it turned out. Today he gets daily offers to add to his collection. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply.

Eric Braverman and several items of his vast collection

He’s not religious but there’s nothing unseemly or satirical about any of the works on hand. They are all properly devout in their own special ways. There’s a hint of motivation. Jewish himself, Braverman notes with a touch of pride that the figures in the depictions are Jewish about to abet the astounding creation of Christianity here on display in Douglas.

This is one of two main attractions in the town, a reason to make a perfectly safe trip there. Right across the street is the Gadsden Hotel, which looks as if it belongs In Venice. Within is an Italian marble staircase fit for a king or at least for famed guerrilla fighter Pancho Villa, who is said to have ridden his horse part way up. On either side are soaring marble columns reaching a ceiling of spectacular stained glass depicting desert scenes beyond. No one has to go to Europe to experience Old World Beauty.

Marble stairway where Pancho Villa rode part way up on his horse

What is it doing in Douglas? It was built in 1907 during the copper mining boom that brought wealth, fame and some notoriety to the town. Who says we can’t be as good as the snooty Europeans? The Gadsden Hotel will show them, and indeed it does. A series of managements has been struggling to be worthy of the beautiful building they occupy. Gadsden remains an awkward standout in a town of many empty buildings with little sign of renewal. A former Gadsden owner, Anel Lopez, says that can soon change. Out-of-state investors are showing an interest in the area and buying property. Now Parks and Recreation Manager, she and others are fashioning a tourist route that links Douglas with other nearby towns of western vintage and color that can spark a revival. There will be more to Douglas than even Gadsden and The Last Supper.

School children performing the Wizard of Oz in lobby of Gadsden hotel

Save The Children

Despite the growing tension over immigrationand drugs, normal life goes on between the U.S.and Mexico. People continue to cross the bridge connecting del Rio on the U.S. side with Acuña on the Mexican. One of those is Bob Kapoor who, like other citizens in del Rio, wants to take advantage of the lower prices in Mexico for basic services like medical needs. He finds Mexican doctors as qualified as American while charging much less. The same goes for a vet for his dog.

But there is another reason for his near daily border crossing. He and his wife Jyoti are financing an orphanage in Acuña for some twenty-five abandoned children ranging in age from two to twenty-one. They were found on the street where children tend to play all day and then go home. But some stay. The street with its attendant dangers is their home.

The orphanage is a welcome change. “We’re abig family,” says Bob. Whatever the age differences, the company of children make upfor the lack of parents. In most cases the mothers, usually on drugs, have given them up and prefer not to see them again. Occasionally, a grandmother will appear and ask for a child who may or may not want to leave the orphanage and the close friends he or she has made.

The scene outside is not reassuring. Like other border towns Acuña is part of a drug cartel network that extends along the 2000 mile U.S. border. Nobody does anything that upsets a cartel without paying a substantial price. So the orphanage provides protection against a possibly fatal mishap.

Acuña, says Bob, is in the hands of a “pretend cartel;” that is, one that’s aspiring to be the real thing in a smaller town that tends to be ignored by the larger criminals. That doesn’t mean the “pretends” are any less methodical in theirtrafficking. One practice is to give a baby to one or two people trying to cross the border. With that in hand they are sure to be accepted in the U.S. Once they are, they give the baby back to a cartel member who returns it to Acuña for yet another trip until the baby expires and thus is no longer useful. Prospective temporary parents can be housed in one of Acuña’s run downhotels not too far from the orphanage.

Occasionally, del Rio experiences a surge of migrants instead of the usual trickle. Thousands of Haitians piled up under the border bridge in great distress until they were sent to various parts of the U.S or stayed to work in Acuña. The Kapoors await the next expected surge in their modest but popular hotel in the busy heart of del Rio. Called the “Whispering Palms,” it’s famed for a whistling parrot named Larry with the lifespan of a healthy human who favors guests he likes with a gentle peck. It’s a comforting sight and sound in the tumult of change.

On the Brink

For scenery it’s hard to beat a twelve mile stretch of road along the Rio Grande outside the Texas border town del Rio. There’s one problem. It’s a favorite crossing point for illegal immigrants trying to reach the U.S. They usually succeed but not always. The climb down to the river isn’t easy, and the current can be swift. There’s an occasional drowning. The National Guard greet most of the crossers and detain them for the Border Patrol.

The area is a special project of Texas Governor Greg Abbott to show he is serious about border control. His Abbott fence is now completed along the route. It’s not a thirty-foot-high Trump affair, only ten feet with razor wire on top. Migrants have cut holes in it with shears and are sometimes able to scale it. But Sergeant Alejandro Moy says it has helped his competent National Guard team to apprehend those crossing.

Between the fence and the migrants are the homeowners who pay a price in insecurity for their splendid setting on the river. They can expect daily visits from weary, bedraggled migrants wondering where to go next. Barking dogs alert them to the newcomers who may just be passing through or ask for some food.

Sometimes they want more. Diane Schroeder, a watchful resident, says she once had to save a horse from a migrant intent on transportation. Nelson Puo, a retired Border Patrol officer, caught a couple of migrants trying to make off with his refrigerator. He handed them over to the Border Patrol. He says every day he has to be on the look-out. It’s steady work, though good fishing is a compensation.

In effect, like it or not, the del Rio homeowners are a front-line defense against this southern invasion. Their equivalent are the large ranchers on the Arizona border whose property is violated at night by cartel groups clad in black and well-armed. But the ranchers have the advantage of distance. The interlopers steer clear of the ranch house to avoid a shootout. There’s no distance between the Rio Homeowners and their invaders who are closer than neighbors and not as well intentioned. Like the National Guard the residents have guns but cannot fire them unless fired on.

Still, they cope. Doughty Diane Schroeder is not put off by a glimpse of an armed black clad cartel boss giving orders on the opposite riverbank. Her husband, a truck driver, heard a noise outside one night with the dogs barking. When he opened the door with his gun, two trespassers flung themselves on the ground, pleading, “Don’t shoot!” He didn’t, to be sure, and learned that they were not trying to escape from Mexico but to return to it. Apparently, they had made a drug delivery and were going back to make another. Instead, they were turned over to the Border Patrol.

Despite occasional shots from across the river and a lot of unwelcome visitors, the Rio residents seem determined to stay where they are. “This is America,” says Nelson Puo. “Why would I have to move out?” It’s a testament to the Texans that their property values have gone up from $7000 a lot to $10,000. If the migrants continue to come, so may the Texans. It’s a standoff.

The Open Border

The National Guard had just rounded up a group of migrants at the border town of del Rio, Texas. There were four Cubans, four Venezuelans and one Nicaraguan who had met and joined up on the long trek to the U.S. It was often touch and go whether they would make it. Obstacles abounded, manmade and natural. They had to struggle through a jungle and unwelcoming people.

The Venezuelans – three men and a young woman – had the most circuitous route through Honduras and Guatemala in Central America, then up through dangerous Mexico controlled by the drug cartels. They were robbed so often they couldn’t pay the badgering police who threatened to send them back or maybe do something worse. So they took odd jobs to raise the necessary cash and resumed their journey to the Mexican border town Acuna opposite del Rio.

Knee deep they waded across the Rio Grande into the easiest part of their journey – entrance to the U.S. Always quite open along its 2,000 miles, the border today has never been more accessible under the Biden Administration’s highly permissive policies. This group in particular, unarmed, with no drugs and seemingly quite happy to be here, would have little trouble staying.

Sergeant Alejandro Moy, who is in charge of several miles of the border outside del Rio, is glad to welcome this kind of group and amiably questions them. They are much like the other 1,000 people he has detained over the year. Others more criminally inclined may elude capture or find another route to carry out their drug trafficking.

Sergeant Moy along with the rest of the National Guard is at a disadvantage. He has a weapon but cannot use it unless he is shot at first. Nor does he have the power of arrest. So he must await the arrival of the Border Patrol to take the detainees into custody. Since there are not enough Border Patrol, the wait can be as long as three hours.

In the past I had no trouble spotting Border Patrol. On this trip, covering sixty miles on the border, I didn’t see any. I’m told they’re not available because they’re burdened with paperwork in processing the migrants. That leaves a lot of the border uncovered and open to the continual flow of drugs and people.

The only solution is sufficient manpower, and that is conspicuously lacking. The question is why are U.S. troops protecting borders in various parts of the world but not our own? Technological improvements are a help, as is the Trump fence when it’s completed, but the drug cartels are too wily, armed and organized to be stopped by these impediments. Their forces must be met by our forces on the other side.

Once the newcomers are processed, they go to a temporary holding center. Every fifteen minutes a bus arrives with some twenty migrants and then departs with twenty others, mostly healthy-looking young men who are sent to various parts of the U.S., presumably to work and maybe, some Democrats hope, to vote.

I met a relaxed and cheerful Cuban couple – Landy Andres DeTenssen and Rosa Leyum Gonzales – who said they wanted to escape oppression in Cuba for freedom in America. Like others they had to pay along the trip and skirt the dangers, but here they were in the land they longed for. They would like to report on their progress in their new home in Florida. By all means, I said.

The Other War

The war in Ukraine is brutal and destructive with a Russia determined to prevail at whatever the cost. The U.S. is not involved except on the periphery by sending military aid to Ukraine, yet evidence is mounting that it was more engaged than assumed in the build-up to the war. The CIA and special operations were giving advice and training to the Ukrainians. A number of biological research labs with leftover Soviet weapons were under U.S. supervision. If as seems likely, Russia finally overcomes the stalwart Ukrainian defense, Hilary Clinton, among others, predicts an insurgency to follow, modeled on the one that defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan some thirty years ago.

If so, it doesn’t seem likely that U.S. attention will turn any time soon to the other war on its border which from almost any point of view is far more threatening to the country. The ambitious, heavily armed, well organized drug cartels make no secret of their aim to fleece the U.S. and ultimately cripple it. That would be revenge, some say, for the U.S. grab of half of Mexico in the 1840’s war. Their tools are the endless drugs and unknown people they pour across the broken U.S. border without let-up. They’re also expanding their illegal and highly profitable marijuana farms in California and Oregon, again with no serious resistance. Their operatives can be found throughout the U.S. directing drug distribution and billions of dollars in payments to helpful hands.

In the past they have tried to avoid harming Americans while ruthlessly murdering Mexicans who get in their way or, frankly, just for the fun of it. But that seems to be changing. Recently, some cartel gunmen opened fire on the U.S. consulate in the border city Nuevo Laredo, apparently in revenge for the arrest of one of their chiefs. No one was hit, but the U.S. took people and families out of the consulate with the ambassador to Mexico expressing “grave concern” to its government.

Cartel Map by Region of Influence, Stratfor Global Intelligence

That followed the usual script that Mexico is a sovereign country with an inviolate border – at least on its side – when in fact it’s a narco state run by the drug cartels who will no doubt dismiss the ambassador’s plea. It might be asked why the U.S is willing to have Russians killed while sparing the cartels. Are they any less threatening or evil? Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr is alarmed at the size of the threat. In a recent TV interview he recalled a Mexican attempt to arrest a cartel boss that was thwarted by 700 cartel para military troops with machine guns mounted on trucks. He sees a “president down there who believes in hugs, not bullets and has lost control of the country. And we have no control over that territory and no control of the border.”

The U.S. may not believe in hugs but its reaction has not been a great deal more strenuous. The obvious solution is to put U.S. troops, now scattered in dubious activities around the world, on the embattled border where they can confront the cartels and if necessary cross the border to pursue them in what is a lawless land. Are Americans, increasingly poisoned by Mexican fentanyl disguised as drugs of common usage, not as deserving as Ukrainians? In a year’s time 100 thousand Americans have died in this manner.

Then there are the Mexicans who live in a slaughterhouse almost totally ignored by the U.S. media. For example, the cartels are in the habit of raiding funerals of rivals or other offenders where their targets are sure to show up. After a recent attack in the town of San Jose de Gracia, the number of victims couldn’t be determined since the gunmen cleaned up afterwards and removed the bodies. Maybe seventeen, and had they been dismembered or skinned alive?

A war for the liberation of Mexico is not in the offing, but a resolute U.S. stand on the border would be a start.

Defending America

Republican Congressman Mike Turner told TV host Tucker Carlson that the U.S . should come to the aid of Ukraine, which faces a growing military threat from Russia. But why should we support Ukraine over Russia, asked Carlson, given Russia’s far greater importance as a counter weight to a military expansive and somewhat threatening China?

Moreover, he added, the U.S is currently challenged on the Mexican border where people we don’t know and drugs we know all too well are pouring across in unprecedented numbers. That’s where U.S.troops are needed, not as the Republicans imply, in Ukraine for some vague reason having nothing to do with the national interest. And why should our troops be defending other countries’ borders and not our own?

The U.S. Mexican border has been one of the world’s most contentious. It is long – 2000 miles through occasional difficult terrrain. Its boundary is the Rio Grande, a meandering river that sometimes changes course, leaving Mexicans and Americans on the wrong side. It has never been free of strife of one kind or another from early Indian raids to alternating Mexican and American cross border attacks to the current invasion of drugs and immigrants. In an explosion of manifest destiny in the 1840’s, the U.S. took half of Mexico. That more than sufficed. Ever since, it has been very wary of pushing Mexico too hard.

The result is limited use of the U.S. military. There’s a reluctance to militarize the border with the army invariably complaining that it doesn’t have enough troops to guard the border properly. While unsettling, that has not mattered too much except on some occasions like the arrival of Napoleon the Third to collect debts owed by Mexico. With the U.S. involved in Civil War, he decided to take over Mexico altogether and installed Austrian Archduke Maximilian as emperor. The U.S. and France almost came to blows, but Napoleon throught Mexico was not worth a war and retreated to deal with European affairs, leaving his well meaning protege to be executed.

Pancho Villa Photo by: www.britannica.com

Subsequent clashes were purely Mexican-American. Political upheaval was frequent in Mexico, and restless Texans were ready to take advantage of it. Amid the fervor of the times, a plan was circulated with the aim of recovering the half of Mexico lost to the U.S. The fiery Pancho Villa put his stamp on the effort by repeatedly conducting raids across the border that took American along with Mexican lives. As the U.S. readied for World War One, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John Pershing to capture Villa with 20 thousand troops at his disposal Pershing became a victor in the World War but not in Mexico. The elusive Villa managed to escape, and the Americans came home without their quarry.

General John Pershing. Photo by: www.pbs.org

But the effort was not altogether in vain. It had made a point. The U.S army could cross the border if sufficiently motivated, take the necessary action and than return without staying too long – a limited engagement, not an invasion. There would be no repetition of the U.S.- Mexican war. Americans only had a quarrel with elements of Mexico, and that ended a few years later when Villa was killed by rivals who had nothing to do with the U.S.

In subsequent decades, border disturbances died down only to be revived more recently in another form. Instead of wanting to kill Americans, Mexicans now want to join them. Their plight is their drug cartel controlled country where their lives and livelihood are always in danger. U.S. troops once again on the border could send a clear message to the cartels: there are limits to their poisoning of America and their destruction of Mexico.

Border Crisis 3

Peaceful and quiet much of the time, Mexican border towns can suddenly erupt in violence under cartel provocation. Last month shooting broke out in Matamoros between police and members of the Gulf Cartel. Three of the drug group were killed along with a bystander. Two police were wounded

In a notable irony one of the deceased turned out to be Ariel Trevino, known as El Tigre, who was the cartel chief in the border town of Nuevo Progreso, a safe shopping stop for Americans and Mexicans alike. It’s heavily policed and considered free of violence. Perhaps El Tigre, before his fatal encounter, was a peacemaker among cartel chiefs. It can happen.

Nuevo Progreso stands out among Mexican border towns. It’s meant to allure passersby to its seemingly endless lines of closely packed shops in an arcade protected from the sun. It takes quite a while to navigate al these tempting offerings at rock bottom prices. I seemed to be the only gringo there on a festive Sunday, but you can’t really tell since most of us were pretty white.

First in line of eager sellers:- “Want a dentist!” To be followed by “Want some pills!” Want a hat!” Want a taco!” and as the line trails off and only males seem to linger, “Want a girl!” An interesting question is whether there are as many dentists as girls in the line. Probably a close call.

Nuevo Progresso, to be sure, is a detour from border towns more acclimated to violence. In Hildago on the US. side I drove into private farmland to reach the river. A lean watchful rancher was by the side of the road. Can I get to the Rio this way? I asked. “Depends who you are,” he replied. “I usually shoot people trying to steal on my property.” “Thanks for not shooting,” I said. “But I’m not a thief. I’m a journalist. Let’s talk.”

And that we did for a half hour. Chet Miller has a reputation in these parts. He speaks his mind and then acts on it. And he does shoot, sometimes to the annoyance of local law enforcement for which he has little respect. Given current conditions, he said, “you have to create your own law.”

He would have no hesitation to shoot a cartel member who trespassed on his land. “The cartels are afraid of me.” I couldn’t check this out with a cartel. So, I’ll have to take his word for it. He could be right.

The cartels don’t run into much opposition as they advance on the U.S. Is a lone gunman of uncertain temperament the best we can do? The U.S. Government and its attendant media don’t seem to take the border very seriously like, say, China’s threat to Taiwan. Yet the Chinese are not on our border threatening us. It’s wreckers of Mexico on their way to wrecking the U.S with their poison, more easily done than ever with the arrival of fentanyl, a speck of which can kill. Deaths by overdose are rapidly climbing in the U.S. A psychiatrist says drug abuse is likely when there’s so much available. The cartels see to that.

The only genuine solution is to seal the border with U.S. troops. They can stop the cartels from shooting over the border and crossing it. If necessary, they can pursue them into Mexico in the kind of raid at which the U.S. army is particularly skilled. The aim is not to repeat anything like the all-out war of the 1840’s but to show the cartels there are limits and to reduce their power and influence in Mexico. They have never been tested in this way.

Some border residents say many Mexicans would welcome this intervention given their ravaging by the cartels. Now Americans can come to the aid of both countries.