Immigration is not part of Joe Frank Martinez’s job. But in Del Rio, like in other majority Latino communities across the country, the issue is high on voters’ minds and is disrupting long-standing political allegiances.
The memory of nearly 20,000 primarily Haitian immigrants arriving at the border is seared into the minds of Del Rio residents. Many fear it could happen again, making immigration one of the key issues in Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez’s race for reelection and disrupting local politics.
The majority Latino border town is highly dependent on government jobs, many of which are tied to military readiness and immigration enforcement. He was as upset as they were with President Joe Biden’s response, and he’d been very public about saying as much. He hoped that when it came to the race for sheriff, they would judge him on how he’d handled the responsibilities assigned to him. How he’d served Val Verde, like his father before him, as a lawman, neighbor, husband and father; that who he was outweighed his affiliation with any party.“I want to try to keep my campaign at the local level,” Martinez said in an interview.
The thousands of Haitians who arrived in Del Rio three years ago shook the city because it was like nothing people there had experienced in recent history. And like Martinez, a lot of residents here have histories that go back a long way.His grandparents migrated from Italy and Mexico more than 100 years ago, attracted by the area’s fertile land and ranches. One grandmother fled instability and violence leading up to the Mexican Revolution.
Another brother, David, was elected four years ago as Val Verde county attorney. The 60-year-old with graying hair is among the more progressive of his siblings. He opposed efforts to prosecute some people seeking asylum and said that as far as he’s concerned, what’s been going on at the border is not an immigration crisis. It’s “a human crisis.” And in responding to it, he said while choking back tears, “We can’t be inhuman. We can’t put our compassion aside.
He began capturing photos on his phone of the crisis he saw unfolding before him: parents with their babies struggling to wade through the Rio Grande and other immigrants who were not lucky enough to survive the river’s currents. There were also the images of a human smuggler who was arrested three times after she kept getting released, young girls traveling alone and a high-speed chase that left eight immigrants dead.
The governor described what was happening as an invasion. He then announced that the state would build its own wall and arrest immigrants for trespassing as part of, a multibillion-dollar state initiative he’d launched earlier that year. “We are going to do everything we can to secure the border,” Abbott said to a boisterous crowd, “and it begins immediately today right here in Val Verde County.”Immigrants started to arrive in Del Rio by the hundreds, then by the thousands.
“We are pawns in this game that the federal government’s playing,” said Leo Martinez, a self-described ultra-super-conservative Democrat, later adding that much like in a game of chess, border residents are “the ones that you sacrifice up front.” While on his way to a doctor’s appointment last fall, Joe Frank Martinez got a call from an unknown number. It was a Republican operative inviting him to run on behalf of the other team.
Project Red TX began to more aggressively target border communities after Trump made gains in the traditionally Democratic strongholds during the 2020 presidential election. The group, which helps elect Republicans in local races in Latino communities, has raised more than $2.5 million.
“I’ll get them better training, better equipment, better vehicles, better everything,” Hernandez said, without offering specifics on how he would meet that promise, saying only “there’s grants out there that you can get.” During the summer of 2021, a Fox News camera captured the moment when Joe Frank Martinez helped pull immigrants already in the United States out of the Rio Grande. Republicans later used the image to accuse him of helping people enter the country illegally.“Once you are in the United States, in the middle of that river, I’ve got to protect you,” Martinez said, questioning what people would have said if he hadn’t done so and one of the immigrants had drowned.
He’s a good sheriff, Fritz says. She appreciates how he’s readily available and out in the community where constituents can talk to him and voice their concerns. “I just wish he would have pressed the border issue more,” Fritz said as she walked on a patch of the 2,000 acres of desert scrubland that abuts the Rio Grande where her family raises sheep and goats.
Texas Politics Texas Policy Texas Government Border Border Security Demographics Elections U.S./Mexico Border Politics State Government Immigration Donald Trump Greg Abbott Del Rio Joe Biden 2024 Elections
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