Leaning over plates of tamales, pan dulce, and sugar skulls, community organisers and local residents in the border city of Brownsville remembered the dead.
asserted
organisers → lean → dead
This year’s Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, vigil honoured victims of state violence, including those killed in immigration enforcement and detention.
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vigil → honour → enforcement
Just days before the US midterm election on November 3, the event reverberated in a region long subject to Washington, DC’s shifting political winds.
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event → reverberate → winds
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war → lead → 47bn
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bourbon → mean → midterms
“The atmosphere here in the Rio Grande Valley when it comes to ICE detentions and the ICE raids, there’s just the overall feeling amongst folks that there’s no real due process to this,” said Mark Anthony Vasquez, a 52-year-old community organiser.
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Vasquez → come → this
“What is it that we can do to move together and build together to try to make it past this, and make that change that we seek?”
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we → do → that
Down the block, at a bookstore panel on border and immigration policy, 24-year-old Juliana Garcia raised her hand to ask advice on how to find a lawyer able to navigate the aggressively shifting policies of the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has used both an increase in physical enforcement, as well as a reinterpretation of administrative policies, to fuel its mass deportation campaign.
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which → raise → campaign
Garcia’s aunt, a well-known member of the community in the nearby border town of Progreso, was deported just weeks ago, after being called to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) hearing.
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aunt → know → hearing
There she learned she had missed a court date related to her immigration status.
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she → learn → status
In the stress of the moment, she signed a voluntary deportation form.
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she → sign → form
“Within 36 hours, she was deported,” Garcia told Al Jazeera, tucked between bookshelves.
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Garcia → deport → bookshelves
“People are waking up, and they’re remembering that politics, regardless of what branch you’re in, it’s going to impact you every day.”
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it → wake → you
Views on immigration are complex in the Rio Grande Valley, a geographic and cultural region located in subtropical southeast Texas with about 1.5 million residents.
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Views → locate → residents
That complexity has only increased in recent years as border policy and immigration enforcement have become increasingly partisan, leading, reformers say, to dramatic policy swings that prevent more sustainable solutions.
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that → increase → solutions
It is not difficult to find Latino – or Tejano, the local term for Texans of Latino descent – residents wary of the years preceding Trump’s return to office.
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It → find → office
After the restrictive policies of Trump’s first term, border crossings increased dramatically under US President Joe Biden, fuelled in part by the end of a COVID-era policy that made asylum seekers wait for their cases to be processed in Mexico.
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cases → increase → Mexico
Some felt the border region was left to deal with the fallout from the influx.
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region → feel → influx
That discontent has been credited, in part, with Trump’s success in the once-reliably Democratic region in the 2024 presidential election.
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discontent → credit → election
In Hidalgo County, home to the city of McAllen, Trump won 51 percent of the vote in 2024, a three-point margin over Kamala Harris.
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Trump → win → Harris
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in the county by 17 percentage points.
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Biden → beat → points
In neighbouring Cameron County, Trump won by about five percentage points in 2024, despite a 13-point loss in 2020.
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Trump → neighbour → 2020
Voter Jose Arizpe, a 40-year-old resident of Brownsville, assessed the two years since Trump took office as a “positive change”, with fewer asylum seekers waiting in the US for their cases to be processed.
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cases → assess → US
Upon taking office, Trump declared a state of emergency at the border, staunching asylum claims in what rights groups say runs counter to US law.
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groups → take → law
The US Supreme Court has since ruled that US border agents can physically block asylum seekers from reaching US soil to claim asylum.
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agents → rule → asylum
“A lot of people claim that they support illegals and want to let them in,” said Arizpe, a regular Republican voter, “but then, I say ‘well let them in your house’.
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I → claim → house
And they don’t want to do it, right?”
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they → want → it
On border policy, “at first, I supported Trump,” said Martin Torres, a 55-year-old who cast his ballot for Democrats at a public library in Brownsville as part of the state’s early voting.
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who → support → voting
But domestic enforcement, and its impact on the local workforce, soured his views.
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enforcement → sour → views
“Now he changes everything,” he said.
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he → change → everything
A report from the Caminos Institute has estimated the region has lost $180.6m in economic activity due to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including in construction and restaurants.
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region → estimate → construction
Other voters saw Trump’s approach as fuelling bigotry.
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voters → see → bigotry
Last year, the US Supreme Court lifted a lower-court order barring immigration officials from considering “apparent race or ethnicity”, as well as language spoken, when on patrol.
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Court → lift → patrol
Rights groups say the decision effectively allows racial profiling.
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decision → say → profiling
In Texas, a state law also lets local officials stop individuals they suspect entered the country illegally.
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they → let → country
“I just see a lot of discrimination going on,” said George Castorena, a 46-year-old department of education worker, who said he was voting for change.
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he → see → change
To be sure, midterm elections can only offer incremental change on an issue as entrenched as immigration enforcement and border policy.
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elections → offer → enforcement
Democratic control of the House of Representatives would at best serve as a bulwark against the Trump administration legislating more immigration enforcement funding and policy, while opening the door to investigations into the administration’s approach.
Control of the Senate, which could be determined by the contest between Texas Republican Ken Paxton and Democratic challenger James Talarico, could further increase the party’s leverage.
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which → serve → leverage
A change in the governor’s office, meanwhile, could end Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s myriad uses of state agencies to support federal immigration enforcement.
uncertain
change → end → enforcement
But Democrat Gina Hinojosa, if she were to pull off an upset, would be largely constrained by a likely Republican-dominated state legislature and a mountain of pre-existing law.
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she → pull → law
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