Illegal Immigration’s Impact on South Texas Property Owners

Mark Krikorian; Susan Kibbe

By Mark Krikorian and Susan Kibbe on March 23, 2023

Podcast

Summary

Historically high levels of illegal immigration continue to contribute to every state being a border state, every town being a border town. But the phrase doesn’t do justice to the impact that real border communities experience.

On this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, Susan Kibbe, executive director of the South Texan’s Property Rights Association, describes life as a rancher in southern Texas, migration changes she has seen over the years, and the impact of illegal immigration in her community. The association focuses on many property owner concerns; but the key issue, and the issue that gave rise to the creation of the association in 2006, is border security and the its impact on property owners.

The STPRA “educates the public and serves as a strong advocate for the rights of property owners to use, enjoy, and profit from the use of their lands as guaranteed by the Constitutions of the United States of America and the State of Texas.” Illegal immigration has a direct impact on property. Kibbe discusses the property damage done to fences, cattle, water supplies, their homes, the forced changes to their way of life as they struggle to deal with the dangers of traffickers, cartel members, and migrants traversing their property, and the horrors of finding dead bodies on their property.

In his closing commentary, host Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director, highlights the recently released February border numbers, which were more than quadruple the numbers from February 2020 - the last month before the Covid-19 pandemic was declared. Krikorian explains how some illegal immigrants are now being funneled through U.S. ports of entry and not included in the encounter numbers.