With the US midterm elections set for November 3, communities along the Texas-Mexico border are navigating the human consequences of the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign — and weighing how to respond at the ballot box.
In Brownsville, a border city in the Rio Grande Valley, community organisers and residents gathered for a Dia de los Muertos vigil days before the vote. The event honoured victims of state violence, including those who died during immigration enforcement and detention.
"The atmosphere here in the Rio Grande Valley when it comes to ICE detentions and the ICE raids, there's just the overall feeling amongst folks that there's no real due process to this," said Mark Anthony Vasquez, a 52-year-old community organiser. "What is it that we can do to move together and build together to try to make it past this, and make that change that we seek?"
At a nearby bookstore panel on border and immigration policy, 24-year-old Juliana Garcia asked for advice on finding a lawyer able to navigate the administration's rapidly shifting policies. Her aunt, a well-known figure in the border town of Progreso, was deported just weeks ago after attending a Department of Homeland Security hearing, where she learned she had missed a court date related to her immigration status. Under the stress of the moment, she signed a voluntary deportation form.
"Within 36 hours, she was deported," Garcia said. "People are waking up, and they're remembering that politics, regardless of what branch you're in, it's going to impact you every day."
The Trump administration has pursued its mass deportation campaign through increased physical enforcement and a reinterpretation of administrative policies. Upon taking office, Trump declared a state of emergency at the border, effectively halting asylum claims — a move rights groups say runs counter to US law. The US Supreme Court has since ruled that border agents may physically block asylum seekers from reaching US soil to make a claim.
Views on immigration in the Rio Grande Valley are far from uniform. The region, home to roughly 1.5 million residents in subtropical southeast Texas, has a complex political history that has shifted markedly in recent years.
During the Biden administration, border crossings increased sharply, partly following the end of a pandemic-era policy that had required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were processed. Many in the border region felt they were left to manage the consequences of that influx, and that discontent is widely credited as a factor in Trump's strong performance in the area during the 2024 presidential election.
In Hidalgo County, home to the city of McAllen, Trump won 51 percent of the vote in 2024, a three-point margin over Kamala Harris. In 2020, Biden had carried the county by 17 percentage points. In neighbouring Cameron County, Trump won by roughly five percentage points in 2024, despite losing by 13 points four years earlier.
Jose Arizpe, a 40-year-old Brownsville resident and regular Republican voter, described the two years since Trump returned to office as a "positive change", citing fewer asylum seekers waiting in the country for their cases to be resolved.
"A lot of people claim that they support illegals and want to let them in," Arizpe said, "but then, I say 'well let them in your house'. And they don't want to do it, right?"
Meanwhile, Democrats are working to mobilise voters ahead of the vote. Former President Barack Obama has addressed three campaign rallies this week, including one in Atlanta, Georgia, as the party seeks to limit Republican gains in Congress.
The November 3 midterms will determine the composition of the House and Senate, with results widely expected to influence the direction of the remainder of Trump's presidency.
