After returning from a trip to Eagle Pass, Texas in February, NH Governor Chris Sununu asked for and won a special appropriation of $850,000 to send fifteen members of the NH National Guard to Texas to join Operation Lone Star.  He said they would support “security activities at the southern United States border to protect NH citizens from harm.” “Fentanyl is pouring in, human trafficking is occurring unabated, and individuals on the terrorist watch list are coming in unchecked,” the governor told the legislators, based on the briefing he said he received from Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott.

When Arnie Alpert traveled to Eagle Pass in May to see what our Guard members were doing, the local community told him a very different story. They described military forces rather than migrants invading, obliteration of local control, environmental destruction, and how the dramatic rhetoric of politicians and media is increasing danger not protecting lives.

While the Biden administration is joining Republican efforts to restrict migration, they are also supporting plans for new bridges to make it easier for goods manufactured in Mexico to “migrate” across the border to the USA. Those plans are being protested, too, by local residents who say the new transportation corridor will damage the environment and harm poor neighborhoods. On the other side of the Rio Grande, in Piedras Negras, workers who manufacture those goods are continuing their efforts to demand their rights in the foreign-owned assembly plants. Arnie visited them, too.

Since retiring from AFSC-NH 4 years ago, Arnie has been covering the activist scene as a columnist for InDepthNH.org, writing about pacifist history for WagingNonviolence.org, and adding content to his NH Radical History website.

About NHPA’s bi-weekly Zoom Peace & Justice Conversation Series: 2020’s upheavals brought us to a new moment of reckoning and possibility. How do we want to live in the world? What do we value? How can we make the changes we’ve been yearning for? NH Peace Action has been engaged in working for change for decades. We’d like to bring you into these conversations about issues and options for the future.  There is no charge to attend, but your contributions in any amount are greatly appreciated.

Photos by Arnie Alpert:  View of the Rio Grande from the International Bridge;  Soldier in Eagle Pass;  view of Eagle Pass from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.