South Texas mayors head to D.C. to address ICE raids and their economic impacts

Representatives from the South Texas Alliance of Cities will visit Washington D.C. next week to advocate for the region’s needs.

During an Alliance meeting in Weslaco on Thursday, Brownsville Mayor John Cowen, who serves as the organization’s chairman, listed a couple of priority topics to drum up in D.C. Immigration topped those issues.

“I think it’s just telling our story,” he said. “I think there’s a national narrative of the border, and I think there’s some misconceptions. And we want to propose concrete solutions that people can work towards that creates a win-win environment.”

The Rio Grande Valley’s border narrative has long been a mixed bag business-wise.

On one hand, crossborder developments and bridges bring in millions of dollars of revenue for the Valley.

On the other, bordertowns have struggled with a national narrative that paints them as unsafe despite many of them reporting notably low crime statistics.

Hoteliers have complained about potential guests worrying about whether it’s safe to travel to the Valley. 

More recently, businesspeople have tied significant drops in construction activity to local work-site raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

State Rep. Terry Canales, D- Edinburg, who spoke as part of a panel the Alliance hosted Thursday, put the issue bluntly.

“Unfortunately, we’re on the frontpage [being] called a warzone, but we’re a tradezone,” he said.

Cowen hopes the Alliance can advocate constructively to change that narrative.

“It’s not to be critical, it’s not to create a contentious environment,” he said. “Let’s talk about solutions. Let’s talk about how this is affecting our economy. How projects are being stalled. How families are being torn apart. I think those are the real conversations and I think people need to hear that.”

Cowen said the Rio Grande Valley has valuable insight to share on immigration, though he says the issue is also, to a degree, universal.

“We all have a migrant story, right? All of our families came from places that were having challenges more than likely, right? And we need to recognize that,” he said.

Immigration should be viewed through an economic lens, he said.

“Our population is below the replacement rate,” he said. “So we want to grow our economy and we want to have success in the long term. Well, how can we use immigration? How can we use the people that are here to really accelerate that?”

The Alliance’s advocacy, Cowen said, has been successful in drawing attention to South Texas in the past.

“I can tell you that when we were having the migrant crisis on the border, we were able to bring President Biden down to the border to see first hand, and we met with him,” Cowen said. “So I think that was a real win for the Alliance. And we’ve, I think, maintained those relationships at the state and federal level.”