The great test for Trump's border wall: Texas' Rio Grande Valley
ROMA, Texas - The moon narrowed to a sliver as several migrants paddled a raft across the Rio Grande to the banks of this small Texas border town and scrambled up well-worn dirt trails through thorny mesquite into a cluster of shabby houses.
There was no wall to stop them. That job fell to half a dozen Border Patrol agents on bicycle and foot patrol last month. Flashlights bobbing, the agents found a pregnant Central American migrant stopped by a Family Dollar parking lot. She surrendered in hopes of applying for asylum. The others had disappeared.
"We do not have control," said Manual Padilla Jr., the Border Patrol's sector chief for the Rio Grande Valley. In the area around Roma, he said, traffic has shifted to where the agency does not have sufficient personnel, technology and infrastructure - including a wall.
But where and how to
