LOS EBANOS, TX - Crossing the southern border into the United States from Mexico has gotten more complicated over the last several years. There's the more stringent government regulations and increased focus on border protection and security that makes it more complex, there's also the terrible violence on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande River.
Lakeshore Public Radio traveled to the Southern part of Texas and talked to the locals who say that wasn't always the case.
Nelly Garcia, who is a Rio Grande Valley native from Palm View, Texas said traversing between the U.S. and Mexico border used to be no big deal and life wasn't always violent along the river. She says in fact her own family used to go on the Rio Grande River on Jet Skis for recreation.
The U.S. government implemented regulations that required passports for air and sea travel to and from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. That law went into effect on January 8th, 2007.
Before the law, U.S. citizens only had to show a driver's license and birth certificate to travel in the Western hemisphere.
And since President Trump took office in January of 2017, there's the hyper focus on more stringent immigration policies and tightened border control, getting back into the United States from Mexico is not as easy as it used to be.
The heightened border control has even changed the landscape of and around a historical landmark in the small Texas town of Los Ebanos. Los Ebanos is home to the last pull ferry in the United States.
I first visited the Los Ebanos Pull Ferry in 2006. It was this quaint little area on the Rio Grande River. It had trees all around and the area looked very untouched. It still pretty much looks like that, but now there's also a very large border patrol station onsite, right next to the pull ferry.
When I visited in 2006, the Border Patrol Station was not there, but there were a couple small shops that appeared to be good businesses. The store I went into called, Los Ebanos Ferry Junction sold t-shirts, hats, refrigerator magnets, ice cream and snow cones. It also had painted terra cotta figurines galore. I bought a painted terra cotta fish with an open mouth that I still use at my kitchen sink to hold the sponge.
When I went back to the Pull Ferry in March of 2019. Things had changed. There was the constructed border patrol station. And the Los Ebanos Ferry Junction store was closed down. The store next to it was also shut down and there were also several abandoned houses in the area. It looked a bit like a ghost town.
It appeared as if the increased border patrol presence combined with all the violence in Mexico over the drug war had taken it's toll.
