PRESIDIO — In spring, when thunderstorms pop up and the power goes out in this tiny border town tucked in the Big Bend region of West Texas, there’s a simple solution. Turn to neighbors in Ojinaga, just across the Rio Grande.
“Somebody can flip a switch, so to speak, and we get Mexican power and vice versa,” said John Ferguson, Presidio's newly re-elected mayor.
Presidio, population 3,460, and Ojinaga, five times larger, rely on each other for just about everything. Firefighters and ambulances go back and forth as needed, an agreement born out of the towns’ shared isolation. People also cross the international bridge connecting the two towns to visit relatives, shop, work or go to school, often daily. Most locals have documents or dual citizenship.
Most residents of the towns share a view that a border wall proposed by President Trump — a campaign promise aimed at illegal immigration — is unnecessary and would hinder their way of life.
The wall "would probably look ugly and we’d be sad about it, but we’d still have to cross,” said Pamela Viramontes, 14, a middle school student in Presidio. “We don’t go through the river. The bridge is there if we want to cross.”
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Few people are sneaking into the U.S. through this remote area. Mountains and other rugged terrain keep the area from becoming a busy smuggling corridor. Border Patrol agents caught about 6,000 people in the Big Bend area last year compared with more than 186,000 in the Rio Grande Valley.
President Trump vows to fulfill his campaign promise to build a "big, beautiful wall" to protect the southwest border from drug traffickers and criminals.
"Our president means well. He wants to do the right thing for the country, but in areas like this, we don't need it," said Presidio Sheriff Danny Dominguez. "Most of my county is a wall. It's the most mountainous county in the state."
The Big Bend region is named for the winding Rio Grande river, the international boundary that defines the border and Terry Bishop’s property line.
Bishop, a farmer, favors strong borders and immigration controls: “Every nation, not just America, you have to have control of your borders,” he said. “You can’t just open it up.”
But he said he does not want a wall on his land, which includes seven miles of border. He wonders about the impact a wall would have on his work.
“My concern is for the landowners that have to come down to work on a suction pipe for irrigating,” Bishop said. “Will we be provided access to get down here and do the work that we need to do to continue our livelihood?”
Border Patrol agents posted on his land now keep an eye on the Rio Grande. Bishop favors adding agents rather than building a wall.
“You can’t watch it the entire time. If you’re going to put people out there to watch, you might as well forget the fence [wall] and use the money to pay people to sit out there to watch it.”
He grew up on the border, swam and fished in the Rio Grande, and like many makes frequent trips to Mexico. “To a lot of us down here, this is just some water we’ve go to cross to visit somebody over there or go eat or something. It’s not that big a deal for us."
On a recent evening Carina Baeza, a mother of three, watched her son at baseball practice in Presidio just after sunset and reflected on life in her hometown.
“Presidio lives from Ojinaga, and Ojinaga lives from Presidio,” said Baeza.
Ferguson, an Iowa native, couldn’t agree more. He fell in love with the Big Bend region during a camping trip and moved to Presidio with his new bride 30 years ago. The couple now has a son in high school and a daughter in college. Ferguson is the mariachi band director at the middle school. Most of his students have family members on both sides of the border, and he also crosses back and forth regularly.
“For us to build a big wall and wall off our selves specifically from Ojinaga is, really, wow. That’s just really embarrassing,” said Ferguson.
Sheriff Dominguez said the wall in his county would be a "waste of money" and urged Trump to visit Presidio to see how the barrier would affect people.
"We see Mexico right now. It's like blocking the living room from the bedroom."
