America's other war: The border

It might seem like an exaggeration to call the US-Mexico border a war zone, but it’s really not. Bullets from gunfights in Ciudad Juarez have struck buildings on the Texas side in El Paso more than once, including one incident in which bullets struck El Paso city hall. American missionaries, students, ICE agents and tourists have all been wounded or killed in Mexico or on the border just in the past few months. Ranchers on the border have had to arm themselves with the biggest, meanest guns they can get their hands on, else they might find themselves at the mercy of either roving drug cartels, coyotes, illegals trespassing on their land, or even the occasional Mexican military incursion into the US, at any moment.

So some border residents are just giving up.

One Texas farmer, who asked not to be identified, said it’s common for him to see undocumented immigrants walking through his property.

“I see something, I just drive away,” he said. “It is a problem, I’ve learned to live with it and pretty much, I’ve become numb to it.”

Another farmer, Joe Aguilar, said enough is enough. After walking up on armed gunmen sneaking undocumented immigrants into the United States through his land, Aguilar decided to sell his farm.“It’s really sad to say, you either have to beat ‘em or join ‘em and I decided not to do either,” Aguilar said.

Aguilar’s family farmed 6,000 acres of land along the Texas-Mexico border for nearly 100 years.

A century of family farming, gone because our government won’t do its constitutional duty. The problem is bigger than just a few ranches and farms. It may end up impacting a whole lot else.

Texas farmers and ranchers produce more cotton and more cattle than any other state, so Staples is concerned this war could eventually impact our food supply, and calls it a threat to our national security.

These stories are coming from a web site that Texas Ag Commissioner Todd Staples set up to capture information about what’s really happening on the border. The commodities, the drug gangs, the potential for terrorists to cross in and wreak havoc — the recipe for disaster couldn’t be more obvious. But Washington does nothing, other than sue a state that decided to do something about it.