Back in 1968, as the earth was cooling from the Big Bang, three old friends and I went to a Simon & Garfunkel concert in Houston. I was a University of Houston student and they all went to the University of Texas, before Bo French was born so he wasn't around to be appalled at their college choices.

When the concert ended, we were all so transfixed, we just didn't want to go to class on Monday.

OK, it wasn't Saturday, but we still felt pretty "Hey nonny nonny and a hot cha-cha" so we flipped a coin, New Orleans or Mexico. Mexico won and we headed for the border.

After a day of relatively minor debauchery in Nuevo Laredo, mainly involving Negra Modelo and awful cigarettes, we came back, but were stopped at the border on the US side, searched and questioned. It seems four white college kids crossing back on a Monday spelled only one thing, drugs. We didn't have any, but as we sat under a portrait of LBJ, I whispered to my buddy, "Should we tell them we are actually smuggling underwear into the US?"

That light-hearted view of border security, which earned me a strip search by the way, is long gone. So I want to show you a picture. If you are a citizen of Mexico and are facing a dangerous, cartel-run existence, or simply want to find a better job to provide for your family, you naturally would think about coming across the border to the US, one way or another.

Even former republican Texas Senator Phil Gramm said...

"If my family was starving, you'd have to shoot me to keep me from crossing the border to feed my family."

So, would you choose this spot for your journey...

Or this one...

Or, would this seem a better choice...

Now, I know what you're thinking. That's a legal border crossing. But it may surprise you to learn that nearly half of the undocumented aliens in this country are here by virtue of overstaying a visa. I know, not as dramatic as videos of guys climbing over a wall...

But indeed, that is the case according to the Department of Homeland Security...

The share of people becoming undocumented immigrants in the United States not by illegally crossing a border, but by overstaying their visas was almost 40 percent of estimated new undocumented immigrants in the fiscal year 2023. While an estimated 860,000 new undocumented arrivals were created due to illegal border crossings that year, more than 510,000 people overstayed their visas.

OK, so of the ones that do cross the border, on foot, where do they cross?  

• Rio Grande Valley Sector: Consistently records some of the highest numbers of migrant encounters along the Texas border due to its geography, which features dense brush and a winding river that facilitate hiding.
• Laredo Sector: Frequently experiences shifts in smuggling activity because large portions of the river boundary lack natural or man-made barriers.
• El Paso Sector: Serves as another major urban and surrounding corridor where authorities record high volumes of enforcement actions.
• Del Rio Sector (including Eagle Pass): Previously served as the national epicenter for massive migrant surges (such as in 2023), though activity in this specific area dropped sharply following heightened enforcement and changing federal and state security measures.

Former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a Republican and a friend, points out...

There are 9 border patrol sectors on the Mexican border. The Big Bend sector which is the largest in area and has more than 517 miles of Rio Grande frontage (more than any other sector) accounts for 1.3% of all illegal encounters, the lowest of all sectors for the last 53 years.

So, if you can conjure up a visa, you do it. If not, you pick a much more hospitable place to cross. You know, one with fewer deserts and canyons. I have said before, if a guy can cross a desert, clamber down a canyon wall, cross the river, and up another canyon wall and then cross another desert, don't deport him. Hire him.

In addition, the Big Bend is one of the most scenic, though desolate, natural areas of the state. It is home to more bird species, for instance, than any other. That's why it's been set aside as a National Park, at least until the administration decides to sell off part of it like Yosemite.

So, those good folks who have been fighting the idea of a border wall in the area, which hasn't included the Governor, Lieutenant Governor or Republican Senate candidate, have won a minor victory.

A judge on Friday blocked further border barrier construction in the Big Bend region, approving an environmental group’s motion for a preliminary injunction.

At the end of Friday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone asked the courtroom to remain calm while she read her order aloud from the bench. She ruled that the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims to halt the construction were likely to succeed and her preliminary injunction against “ground-disturbing activities” would remain in effect while the suit continued to play out in court.

So, OK, it isn't over yet. And the order came too late for one bit of archeological history. It's not in Texas, but it illustrates the risk.

For millennia, a 272-foot-long fished etched into the rocky floor of the Sonoran Desert called Las Playas Intaglio has resided largely undisturbed along what is now the U.S.-Mexico border. But in April, construction workers near Ajo, Arizona, plowed a 50-foot scar through the ancient geoglyph to build the Trump Administration’s border wall.

It is older than Stonehenge, the carved lines in the mountains of Peru and the Pyramids, and is sacred to several Indian tribes, but now the head of that fish is essentially destroyed.

Is it worth it to take that kind of chance in Big Bend, folks? Outgoing US Senator John Cornyn doesn't think so, but he is a pretty lonely voice on that side of the aisle. And one has to ask, if he hadn't lost to Ken Paxton, would he be?

Given the amount of opposition, and it is considerable, from the folks who live, work and make their living in that area, why pursue this thing? If the illegal crossings there are so few, and electronic surveillance would do the trick, why not back off?

Because that's not what these folks do. I'm sure the case will be pursued, no matter who objects, who will lose a livelihood or what history gets plowed under.

Because winning is the only object, and besides, it will annoy the Libs, right? And that's all that matters these days.