Life on the Line: Residents with deep roots along border fear being displaced
ROMA, Texas - The neighborhood's namesake, Maria Albesa De La Cruz, was among the first in the tiny, riverside colonia to receive a letter about the border wall.
Decades earlier, the 79-year-old De La Cruz, her husband and his six siblings had earned enough money picking crops in California's Central Valley to buy land at the edge of the Rio Grande, where their cattle grazed and sipped from the river near the bridge to Mexico.
In September she got a letter from the U.S. government requesting access to her land so crews could survey the property and assess possible impacts of a wall. "We hope that you and other landowners in the Rio Grande Valley will assist us in our strategic efforts to secure our Nation's borders," the letter said.
On Saturday, part of the federal government shut down when Congress didn't agree to fund President Donald Trump's border wall. In Roma, a town of about 11,400 in southern Texas, the border wall debate is deeply personal.
"This is our land," said Maria Guadalupe "Lupita" Rios, 60, De La Cruz's niece. Her family created the colonia De La Cruz, as the neighborhood is known, and named streets after relatives - Sebastian Street, Federico Street, Angela Avenue. It is now home to more than 70 residents, the city says.
A wealthy Tejano family once tried to take the ownership of the land, waging a protracted court battle. Rios' father won. Now she and Roma residents with roots stretching back to the days of Spanish rule feel their property is again under threat.
The wall has created
