Eagle Pass became the biggest hot spot for migrant crossings at the end of last year. Texas police and National Guard troops have taken over a city park on the Rio Grande, surrounding it with barbed wire and shipping containers and setting up armed patrols. Source: Getty Images
How the surge in border crossings bolstered Trump, put Biden on the defensive and exposed an outdated immigration system that no one likes.
The coils of barbed wire at the edge of Poncho Nevarez’s ranch on the Rio Grande were meant as a deterrent. Instead, they just tore at the bodies and clothes of desperate migrants who clambered through to Eagle Pass, Texas.
The fence installed by the National Guard was, in Nevarez’s view, both horribly barbaric and largely ineffective, like so much of the border-enforcement push that’s popped up around his 500…
