Photo from The Monitor in McAllen, Texas of immigrants being moved from a stash house by the Border Patrol

The flood builds. Mexico is a failing state but those countries to its south, save Belize, are far, far worse. There are about 40 million south of Mexico and probably half the Mexican population has poor prospects for jobs, health and education. The youth in these countries provide feedstock for the cartels but the much larger number seek to escape to the United States. Texas is the front door.

Immigration reform is a fantasy of politicians. The American economy is not generating sufficient jobs for unskilled, semi-skilled and even college educated labor. The United States does not need more workers. Politicians and the media will dwell on individual cases but fail to consider the impossibly large numbers seeking some form of refuge north of the Rio Grande!

The Valley more than any other place along the Rio Grande or from El Paso west bears the brunt of the exploding numbers of adults, youth, children and infants seeking to enter the United States. The Border Patrol reports overwhelming numbers reaching 1,100 arrests per day in early May. Demography and poverty drives the immigrant flow and the Valley with communities like Brownsville and McAllen with ready walking distances to Mexican cities is the least mountainous or difficult desert terrain in Mexico.