BROWNSVILLE AT THE VORTEX OF ANOTHER P.R. DISASTER

By Juan Montoya
Whether it was the Tienda Amigo disaster, the spate of births of babies born with anencephalic brains, the beheading of three babies by their drug-crazed parents, the controversy over a city official recorded saying the "N" word, the debate over the Confederate Jefferson Davis memorial in Washington Park,  Brownsville finds itself again with a black eye in the center of a national issue.

This community has been trying to recover from the federal prosecution of judicial and legal corruption that caught national attention, a sheriff convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison, a district judge, a district attorney and a gaggle of lawyers who followed in his footsteps all for not doing the right thing.

Add that to the notoriety of being labeled the poorest city in the United States, and you got one heck of a public relations problem for this All American city. Those feeble attempt to rehab the city's image by competing for the Guinness World Records for most people Zumba dancing and most kids fishing in a stocked resaca to Fish For Life seem trivial compared to the issues before us.

What good are the misguided goals of being recognized in national trade magazines as the poor city that is spending millions to attract high-end tourists to use the hike-and-bike trials when confronted with immediate issues of this magnitude?

Now we are at the heart of the national immigration debate with the city being painted as the location of federally-funded shelters (detention centers, camps, gulags, etc.) to house Central American minors, including those that have been forcibly removed from their parents. The stiffening of the enforcement of immigration laws on the books through the "zero-tolerance" policy of the Trump Administration has again pushed us to the center of the national stage and the images being projected are neither pleasing nor flattering.

Our congressman Filemon Vela Jr. fell into the bad graces of the Trump Administration when the foul-mouthed president blamed a federal judge for a decision in his case and insinuated the judge had acted against him because he was a Mexican-American.

Trump later settled on the case and paid millions, but it was the umbrage that Vela took at having the integrity of Mexican-American federal judges like his father questioned that prompted him to tell Trump to "stick the wall up your ass."

The memories of that encounter surely won't fade anytime soon. We made national headlines then, too. Just today, the local daily reports that Vela has ascertained that 500 minors out of a total of 2,000 separated from their parents are housed in Southwest Key facilities like the old Walmart on South Padre Island Highway.

Still, Trump and his administration remain adamant that unless Congress approves $25 billion for the border wall, there is no "deal" over this immigration nightmare.

What can this community do?
Immigration policy falls under the purview of the federal government. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has fallen all over himself trying to curry the favor of the Trump Administration by sending the National Guard to buttress the presence of the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers lined along the border trying to keep out the hordes of Central Americans seeking a place in the land of opportunity.

The Brownsville Police Department already allows federal agents to question inmates at the city hoosegow who have been dragged in the night before for the various misdemeanor offenses like public intoxication, burglary, vagrancy, assault, fighting, etc. on their immigration status. Brownsville is not a sanctuary city by choice. And now we are at the center of the debate because the federal government has chosen this city to establish the largest detention center of unaccompanied minors in the country.

The treatment of Central Americans is markedly different than the treatment afforded Mexican nationals. In the case of Mexicans – unless they are wanted for some more serious crime – they are hurriedly taken to the bridge and handed over to Mexican authorities.

There is a disconnect there. Mexico is now considered to be as dangerous a county as Syria and Yemen, and yet, the Mexicans are sent back to that danger without a thought by ICE. And when the Central American immigrants get here, they cite the danger in their countries from armed cartels and gangs as the justification for seeking asylum here. This despite the fact that they have just passed through one of the most dangerous places on earth, one deemed higher on a risk scale by the U.S. State Department that their countries of origin.

Meanwhile, ICE continues to arrest the parents of U.S.-born children and deporting them even though it will mean leaving the children alone and separated from their parents. And the reluctance of the Trump administration to reach a "deal" on the DACA "dreamers" places them – who were brought here as children – at danger of deportation.

And some point out that the exodus of these unfortunates was fueled by past policies of U.S. governments to fight progressive movements and install regimes friendly to us and oppressive to their people. They say that the Mara Salvatruchas are a U.S-grown phenomenon spawned in the squalor of crime-ridden barrios and drug-infested inner-cities across the country and in the incubators in our prisons. When they are deported to their home countries, they spread their terror there.

Does the picture of a child removed forcibly from his mother's arms play to the Trump base? If it does, something is horribly missing in that base, a common humanity that holds the bond between mother and child inviolable.

But U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions stated unequivocally that this administration will adhere to that policy come hell or high water and ordered that other sites along the border be set up to receive the human overflow. Tent cities have already gone up in Tornillo near El Paso as temperatures there hovered in the triple digits.

This will not come cheaply. The U.S. already pays millions to some outfits like Southwest Key to house these minors. The centers provide good-paying jobs to local residents compared to the minimum-wage employment offered by local commerce and manufacturers.

And again, the founder and CEO of Southwest Key is none other than Brownsville native Dr. Juan Sanchez. The Washington Post reported that Southwest Key's most recent Internal Revenue report indicates that Sanchez received more than $1.5 million in compensation for housing 5,129 immigrant children in three states, almost half the 11,400 now in federal custody.

Just what can our city, state and religious leaders do to counter the national glare on our city? Should they thumb their noses at the federal government? Should they side with Trump and support these actions instead? Or should they just continue to do nothing and let the drama unfold?