EAGLE PASS (AP) — A Texas pecan farm nearly the size of Disneyland has become entangled in a turf war between the Biden administration and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott over immigration enforcement on the southern border.
Hugo and Magali Urbina, who bought Heavenly Farms in April 2021, at first welcomed the state footing the bill for a new chain-link fence through their property earlier this year as part of Abbott’s multibillion-dollar crackdown on border crossings along the Rio Grande. But then, one day, they found the fence’s main gate unexpectedly locked.
The lock was put there, the couple says, by Texas authorities who have spent months arresting thousands of migrants on trespassing charges on private land. But the Urbinas didn’t want the lock and neither did the U.S. Border Patrol, which found it impeded the agency’s own immigration enforcement and had it removed.
