North Texas mayors take "sobering" two day trip to border
TEXAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) - A two-day trip to the Texas southern border has two North Texas mayors calling for more local elected leaders to visit and amplify calls to better manage the number of migrants crossing into the state.
Keller Mayor Armin Mizani and Southlake Mayor John Huffman were in the Rio Grande Valley Tuesday and Wednesday, invited by their counterparts in McAllen, Edinburgh and Donna.
Mizani called the visit a "sobering" experience, hearing local officials describe the sheer number of people who pass through border cities, and move on to North Texas and other regions across the state and country.
"It definitely changed my perspective in the sense that, this is not a Republican or Democrat issue," Mizani said. "Leaders in Austin, leaders in D.C., need to come to the table because it is impacting everybody."
The pair met with U.S. Border Patrol agents and members of the National Border Patrol Council, as well as surveying the border from a Texas DPS helicopter.
Huffman said while border issues can sometimes seem to be an issue without a solution, he was struck by border patrol agents stressing that they know there are ways to slow the movement of people, but that they aren't able to put those plans into action.
He acknowledged that the two small cities in northeast Tarrant County, with a largely affluent population, are not impacted the same way several large metropolitan areas have been this year, struggling to provide resources to manage buses of migrants.
However, he and Mizani said the flow of illegal drugs and instance of human trafficking connect to the crisis are direct impacts, causing deaths in their communities.
"As citizens and voters, we have to have a sense of urgency that this is a crisis," Huffman said. "It's a national crisis. It's not a regional crisis or a border crisis, and we have to treat it as such."
The mayors said they paid for the trip themselves, including buying lunch for border agents in Brownsville, in appreciation of their efforts there.