Running The Border

The bridge's closure caught some people off guard, causing a disruption to residents’ daily lives, particularly businesses whose employees live in Mexico. From gas stations to restaurants, Del Rio has a workforce shortage during the bridge’s closurehttps://t.co/e4eRRcymY0

— Uriel J. García (@ujohnnyg) September 22, 2021

I spent half a day in Del Rio on business once, long, long ago. (I know, I'm very special!) Really, I mention that because I saw so much that was so different from my ordinary life, and I learned in that one example an enduring lesson in how international borders operate, especially on the Rio Grande.

I was there to get information from a business owner, information for a lawsuit my firm was working on.  I was a legal assistant at the time, not a lawyer.  Del Rio was about half a day's drive from Austin, and I spent my time in the owner's place of business, having a friendly and informative chat.  I'm sure I ate lunch somewhere, but I don't remember it. In fact, all I remember now (this was nearly 40 years ago) is what happened when a customer walked in while we were talking.

I had lived in Texas all my life, but at the time I'd barely heard anything but English spoken around me.  Now, in Houston, I hear languages from across the globe in Costco on a Saturday afternoon.  Then, it was so new it almost shocked me.  I think that's why I remember this story so vividly.  The customer who came in was clearly Mexican (dark brown skin, IIRC), and spoke rapid fire Spanish (it sounds that way to English-trained ears).  The business owner replied in Spanish, without missing a beat.  They conversed for a bit, and the customer left.  My astonished face said everything.  I was astonished in part because the business owner had such a strong Brooklyn accent it was clear he grew up far, far from South Texas and the river.

He just shrugged at my expression and said "You have to learn Spanish here."  He went on to explain many of his customers came over the bridge from Mexico on a daily basis.

Until that moment, in my ignorance, I knew one border town:  El Paso, and one bridge that led to one town in Mexico:  Juarez.  I had crossed that bridge with my family in my adolescence, and I don't have a strong memory of it except I assumed the traffic was largely one-way.  I assumed it because I didn't think about people coming from Mexico just to do business or to visit El Paso as we were visiting Juarez.  Of course, there are a number of towns and official crossing points on the Rio Grande.  But I realized that day, that people live on both sides of that border, and do business on both sides of that border, and think of the river as, largely:  a river.  The way I had, by the time of my visit to Del Rio, come to think of Town Lake in Austin as just a water feature (it's actually the Colorado River, and "divides" Austin into north and south, albeit barely.)  People cross that river on a regular basis, and families live on both sides of its banks, and commerce between the nations is as important as commerce between "north" and "south" Austin, or between Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas. 

So, yeah; as much as the Haitians and others are a burden on Del Rio, closing the bridge is a burden, too.  I know people slightly north of the border think we should "build a wall" and shut the border down as if it were just a room in a house, and we can lock the door.  There are many reasons not to do that, and all of them are not just because "closing" the border is a physical impossibility, or reeks of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain.

Before the Del Rio bridge’s closure, immigration officials had already closed off access to Mexican citizens, unless they were essential workers, because of the pandemic. This cut off tourists, which Del Rio’s economy depends on. Now, with the bridge closed all together, it will continue to have a negative impact on the city’s budget because city officials collected a toll there, Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said on Tuesday.

”We're losing money every hour that it's closed,” Lozano said. “That's our bread and butter.”

​​Lozano added that he was told by federal officials that they will assess if the bridge can open in at least 48 hours.

The closure also caught some people off guard, causing a disruption to residents’ daily lives, particularly businesses whose employees live on the Mexican side. From gas stations to restaurants and hotels, Del Rio has had a workforce shortage during the bridge’s closure.

“I know they said they were going to close the bridge on Friday, but I thought they were lying,” said Raso, who was preparing to-go food orders at the restaurant on a recent Tuesday afternoon. She was able to make it to Ciudad Acuña before the bridge closed, she said.

She and her two coworkers, who also live in Ciudad Acuña, didn't show up to work on Saturday and Monday because of the bridge closure. The owner called a neighbor to help her run the restaurant Saturday morning, one of the busiest days, the women said.

Raso, who was born in San Bernardino, Calif., lives in Ciudad Acuña with her husband and children and works in Del Rio. Many of the 35,000 residents here live a binational lifestyle, with some having homes in both cities and children going to American schools while living in Mexico.