Tim Loop of Brownsville, Texas, is now living in no-man’s land, thanks to the Department of Homeland Security.

 

Loop and his family reside on farmland settled by his grandfather almost a century ago near the U.S.-Mexico border. But their property is being cut off from the rest of the country by the government’s new border fence, which is slicing through Loop’s homestead and a few others living near the Rio Grande River.

 

Homeland security built the fence through these properties because a water treaty with Mexico bars any construction closer to the river, which serves as the border between the two nations. In some places in Texas the fence is more than a mile from the border.

 

Once the government completes the fence, the Loops will have to use a secret code in order to pass through motorized gates being installed by Homeland Security. Loop and others in his situation worry that that the existence of a gate with a pass code could actually make them less secure because they could be targets of smugglers and others attempting to cross the border illegally.

 

“I’ll have to ask permission from the government to live my life,” Loop told the Texas Monthly. “I’m sick to my stomach about this, that as Americans this is happening to us,” said Loop’s mother, Debbie, in an interview with Texas Co-op Power.

 

Another victim of the border fence is the Lennox Foundation Southwest Preserve, home to the rare sabal palm tree. Most of the preserve, run by The Nature Conservancy, is in the no-man’s land between the fence and the border.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Border Fence Upends a Valley Farmer’s Life (by Oscar Casares, Texas Monthly)

Borderline: When it Comes to the Texas/Mexico Wall, No One’s Sitting on the Fence (by Eileen Mattei, Texas Co-op Power)