Illegals Seemingly Surging Area
High Numbers may be linked to Perceived Focus on Uvalde Investigation
Good Morning friends,
It’s easy to say, but difficult to prove that the border crisis in this area has ramped up to a new, higher level, with more illegal aliens cutting through the ranches and in cars on the highways.
But, it follows logic. Smugglers seem aware of the fact that most law enforcement attention and effort for the last several weeks has been focused on investigating matters in Uvalde. Cursory examinations of area hotels also indicate to them where DPS resources are being allocated.
Locally, Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe says he’s counting more illegal aliens than ever on the Operation Drawbridge cameras scattered around the county and concealed on various ranches.
Longtime readers are familiar with these cameras and the sorts of images they provide. Here’s a typical one from some time ago:
We’re using it because it shows how long this has all been going on, and also because it’s one of our favorites, with a good, close-up image showing facial hair, tired expressions, and tattoos on the backs of hands.
Almost every morning, someone at the Sheriff’s Office collects every last photo taken by the Operation Drawbridge camera system. They are activated by movement. That same person counts every individual head to come up with a count. All the while, they know it’s not 100-percent accurate. Sometimes the cameras activate, and half the group is already out of frame. Sometimes the cameras activate and no one is visible: the group is small enough that they already are out of frame by the time the camera takes a snap. Still though, it means the numbers estimating traffic through the area on any given day are not just pulled out of thin air— they are the absolute minimum best guess of how many are coming through. The truth is, the actual numbers are certainly much higher.
So far, 6 days into the Month of June, the Sheriff’s Office has counted nearly 1,000 people on foot on area ranches. None were caught.
We mentioned Uvalde. Let’s talk about it. So far a lot of attention and focus remains on the community. It will probably be months before any final answers are had as a result of any Justice Department or Texas Rangers investigation into the school shooting there. And we use the concept of “final answers” very loosely. We’re still waiting for a lot of answers in the Las Vegas mass shooting, aren’t we? Don’t hold your breath.
One feels fairly confident in predicting that statements and behavior to the contrary, political figures on all sides of the issue are being somewhat duplicitous in any calls for speedy investigations.
On the right, there’s some obvious calculation that as time passes and emotions cool, it will become politically easier to neuter gun control legislation that might be getting put forward in response to the shooting. Won’t stop them from demanding more financial support, however, so as to better resist those gosh darned gun grabbers.
On the left, it’s much the same. As time passes, as emotions cool, it becomes much easier for political figures to shrug their shoulders and say “Well, we tried, but that doggone 2nd Amendment! Golly. If only we could somehow get a Constitutional Convention going! Send us your money, donors. We know times are tough, but we’ll never beat the Republicans without your steadfast support.”
Obviously we have our own beliefs about gun control, and fall on a particular side of this issue. But our inner political nihilist doesn’t see much positive here for anyone. If the current political landscape was a World War, it would definitely be some kind of sclerotic and constipated nightmare vision of World War 1. All trenches and static entrenched behaviors, as the various septuagenarians and octogenarians in Congress groan and grunt, sweating and straining over some porcelain throne.
We’ve detected some frustration in statewide and national publications with local behaviors in Uvalde. It’s not just that local police seem to be trying to interfere with out-of-town reporters— but also there are efforts in the town and on social media, talking about “outsiders,” and “efforts to divide us,” and similar language and sentiments.
Many reporters and observers seem shocked and dismayed that their intentions are being questioned— that there is any patience at all from townsfolk with local police and authorities when it seems so obvious to many that they failed to keep the children at Robb Elementary safe.
This speaks to a mindset prevalent in this area that we first talked about in some of our earliest dispatches— a mindset that seems to be largely missing in areas further south as you get closer to the Rio Grande Valley.
Call it a West Texas influence. Call it the last strains of a westward migratory mentality. We’ve been characterizing it as the influence of “scots-irish” attitudes. You don’t have to be genetically “scots-irish” to have these attitudes, it must be noted.
“Scots-Irish or Scotch-Irish Americans are American descendants of Ulster Protestants who emigrated from Ulster in northern Ireland to America.”
—Wikipedia
It actually goes back further than that. The scots-irish were descended from 13th—16th century elite mercenaries that were called the “Galloglass,” or gallóglaigh, an old Irish term for foreign warriors. The Galloglass were in turn, descended from 10th century Norsemen raiders who’d intermarried and were formerly called Gall Gaeil or ("foreign Gaels").
In modern times, when you see people talking about scots-irish in reference to America and Americans, they’re usually euphemistically talking about hillbillies and rednecks. The scots-irish were basically the land-hungry underclass in the early colonies that were most willing to head out into the wilderness and hack out their own farmsteads and communities from scratch, settling much of the earlier interior territories that later became Kentucky and many other points West.
In the run up to wars that followed 9/11, much was made of “scots-irish” attitudes and how they sort of explain the behavior that fuels patriotic sacrifice and support for any actions that might be characterized as simple “payback” for 9/11. One still remembers a writer in somewhere like Harper’s, or perhaps Time Magazine, who went to great pains to explain how scots-irish (hillbillies) live to answer wrongs and satisfy grudges— even going so far as to reference the Hatfields & McCoys, just in case readers weren’t getting the point.
Scots-Irish attitudes are so strong in the DNA of some communities, that they’ve been adopted by folks of all stripes and ethnic backgrounds. Uvalde is one of those places, even though it is predominantly ethnically Hispanic. So too are Kinney County, and Val Verde County, and also Maverick County. It’s the same stubborn attitude that’ll see someone on a small patch of land stand tall and tell anyone and everyone to get the hell off their lawn.
There is a very scots-irish resistance to the perception of "outside" forces. A mulish sort of tendency to dig in the heels and say "no" to anything and everything from "outside." It can be cast as a negative, and frequently is, but it's more like gravity than it is an actual conscious choice in most cases. And even though there are plenty of folks in Uvalde that do want to see a thorough investigation, and do welcome outside reporters and the spotlight of examination that they bring— there will still be a scots-irish sort of resistance to their presence. A sort of low-key throbbing tooth ache of a feeling— an annoyance with their activities and their judgement. There isn’t a “hillbilly” or “redneck” alive that cares to be looked down on.
One suspects that the frisson this contradictory behavior is generating in people trying to cover matters in Uvalde demonstrates their lack of familiarity with the area and their lack of familiarity with scots-irish attitudes in general.
Anyway— don’t just take our word for all of this. Here’s a piece in The Atlantic, blaming scots-irish attitudes for populist fury with Barack Obama. It also goes into some detail about the history of the scots-irish in America, and their behaviors as a widely overlooked class of people in the modern United States. The piece also cites a recent book published on the matter called “Born Fighting - How the Scots-Irish Shaped America.”
What does this all ultimately mean for Uvalde and folks covering events there? Ongoing confusion and dismay when and if the community eventually turns against “outside” judgement.
And finally, matters keep dragging on in the U.S. District 28 primary race between Henry Cuellar and Jessica Cisneros. Initially, Cuellar declared victory with a 177 vote lead. That lead grew to something like 281 votes in the days following, according to the Texas Tribune.
Monday, Cisneros officially called for a recount. Texas law allows her to do this when the race is so tight. But, she has to pay for it. Reportedly she and her supporters have been raising money ever since election night in order to do so.
Some republicans watching events seem to feel as though this portends positively for their own efforts in the district. They may be right. But we doubt it.
Laredo/Webb County remains a reflexively blue area. And Bexar County these days keeps electing people like the Castro twins. Don’t really see much to be positive about for Republicans in either pole of this bi-polar district, unless they think Democrats in San Antonio will be so disgusted with the loss of Cisneros that they’ll all just stay home come the general election.
That’s a mighty long shot to be banking on.
That’s all for now friends. We’ll see you again soon. It may soon be time for another deep dive into sex-trafficking in Texas and the border connection. We’ve been eyeballing the recent sentencing of a Texas Pimp who went by the name “Macknificent.”
You might think that doesn’t sound like someone who’d have much to do with the border and border smuggling, but you’d be wrong.
We’ll see you then. For now, as always, we should mention our day job at the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office and stress the fact that this newsletter is an independent work product and any errors or other misdeeds contained within it are entirely our own and not reflective of any official policies or positions.
Thank you for an article that is prompting me to put together a hypothetical argument regarding gun control. I'll get back to you on this. Great article, BTW.