We Are on Front Lines of the Biden-Harris Border Disaster, Say Three South Texas Residents

Three South Texas border residents penned an open letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris expressing their frustrations and fears about living on the front lines of the current border crisis. The letter comes in the wake of Vice President Harris’s visit to the border — 850 miles from the epicenter of the border crisis.

“As Texans who live and work along the Southern Border, we are asking America to pay attention to the crisis raging at our doorstep,” the three Texans began in the letter to Biden and Harris provided exclusively to Breitbart Texas. “We’re asking America to listen when we tell you that it is a crisis. It is chaos.”

The letter, written by Richard Ruiz, CEO & President of RMR Inc., Edinburg, Texas; Mayra Guiterrez, a legal immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 2020, McAllen, Texas; and Ronaldo Rodriguez, border resident, Hidalgo, Texas, describes the frustrations, fears, and other concerns experienced by the people who live in the Rio Grande Valley where Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 270,000 migrants so far this fiscal year — a 406 percent increase over the previous year.

“We are on the front lines of this disaster,” the three Texans wrote. “And it started just weeks after Biden and Harris took office.”

“Crime is surging as drug cartels and human smugglers capitalize on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s open-borders agenda,” the letter continues. “Migrant children are being abandoned in the desert and dropped over walls. Human beings are drowning in the Rio Grande because Biden and Harris told them they could come.”

“The deadly drug fentanyl is flooding our communities — Texas officials have already seized enough smuggled fentanyl to kill 21.5 million people,” they wrote. “Those attempting to cross the border include members of the vicious gang MS-13 and people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list.”

“Our neighbors are scared to leave their homes,” the three Texas stated. “How is this acceptable in America?”

The writers placed the blame on the current border crisis on the actions of President Biden and the lack of action by Vice President Harris.

“Why won’t Joe Biden and Kamala Harris lift a finger to help as our local resources are drained to fix this problem?” they asked. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did this. Why won’t they try to fix it?”

The group criticized Vice President Harris’s border visit to the El Paso Sector. While the West Texas sector experienced an increase of 267 percent over last year, the experiences of local residents in completely different. Much of the El Paso Sector is secured by border wall systems. This stands in sharp contrast to the wide-open areas of the Rio Grande Valley Sectors, National Border Patrol Council Vice President Hector Garza told Fox News on Friday.

“Harris might be visiting El Paso, but that’s hundreds of miles [away from] the crisis’s center,” the letter continues. “Kamala Harris, come to the Rio Grande Valley. Come to McAllen.”

“If you really want to see the crisis firsthand, visit our communities who experience the devastating effects of this crisis every single day,” they stated. “A simple photo opportunity in El Paso isn’t enough to fix this crisis.”

“Instead, we’re begging for real solutions,” the three Texans concluded. “Our border patrol agents need real support. The practice of catch-and-release must end.”

“The border needs to be secured,” they said. “Those are the steps that will begin to solve this crisis — not a quick visit from Kamala Harris.”

While Vice President Harris visited the border in El Paso, newly appointed Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz spoke with concerned residents in the Del Rio Sector where agents report a 457 percent increase in border apprehensions, Breitbart Texas’s Randy Clark reported.

The chief listened to concerns expressed by the residents of Del Rio, Texas — concerns that are very similar to those expressed by the Rio Grande Valley residents.

“I’m not worried about the family units that give up; I am concerned with mostly groups of males that are screaming in Spanish at me in my back yard,” one Del Rio resident told Ortiz. “I have daughters and I am worried for their safety.”

“What does it matter that you apprehended 140,000 if you are just releasing them into the United States for us to support for generations to come?” another resident asked.

With four months to go in the current fiscal year, Border Patrol agents apprehend 897,213 migrants. Of those, more than 605,000 took place in the five Texas-based border sectors. This represents more than two-thirds of all southwest border migrant apprehensions, according to statistics provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.