Residents want more manpower as they claim illegal crossings has increased

5/27/2014

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It's been seven years since the controversial border wall went up here in the Valley and some Brownsville residents say it’s not meeting its purpose to keep people from entering the country illegally.

Two Brownsville residents that live nearby the border wall, claim the amount of undocumented immigrants crossing has increased.

Since moving to the United States from England in 1946, Pamela Taylor has called the Valley home.

She lives on Las Milpa Verde Road in Brownsville; her home is just one block away from the U.S. - Mexican border, the frontline of illegal entry.

"I've had an illegal sitting in my living room,” Taylor said “ He came into my house and used the bathroom facilities, shaved, washed, cleaned up, used after shave lotion and was sitting there watching the border patrol pass by."

Taylor says the man scaled the border wall and made his way into her home.

She says the border wall has done more harm than good.

“It was to keep illegals entries into America,” Taylor said. “Has it helped? No, it has worsened."

86-year-old Taylor has lived in this home for 68 years.

However in the past seven years, she's seen more undocumented immigrants than ever before.

"The amount of Mexicans coming across has increased considerably,” Taylor said. “I mean they come across in 20's, 30's."

Right now, the U.S. Border Patrol in the Valley has captured more undocumented immigrants than Arizona, which held the number one spot for years.

The solution Taylor says is adding more agents instead of a border wall with gaping holes.

“ If the border patrol had enough people which we had never had in Brownsville, that they could station someone at every one of those gaps,” Taylor said. “It might work and on every road but they don't have the man power."

Taylor’s longtime friend and neighbor, Raúl Mendez, says the border wall is incomplete.

" The reason it hasn't happened it’s because they put up the fence all the way across but they didn’t put up gates,” Mendez said. “I used to be in the cattle business and how do you think I would look if I bring all my cattle into a big carrel and don't put gates. You think the cattle is going to be there the next day, they are going to be gone."

Like Taylor, what Mendez has witnessed going on right in front of his house is startling.

" I counted right in front of my house one time up to 60 to 75 people going, I mean I couldn't believe my eyes," Mendez said. " I said what in the world, I thought Mexico was moving over to Brownsville."

Neither Taylor or Mendez are against people coming into this country as long as they are doing it correctly.

 

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