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Mayor Jaime Escobar Jr., would be at his desk, inside his modest city hall office, when something outside his window would catch his eye. An individual, or maybe more than one, making a run for it, through the historic downtown plaza in the small border city of Roma, Texas. On more than a few occasions, there would be hundreds of people gathered in that same plaza. Many travelled as families, having just crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S. There are stairs at the river’s edge to help migrants up a steep rocky cliff, where Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers would often be waiting. Most people, he says, would surrender and formally start the asylum-seeking process. “It wouldn’t necessarily happen every single day … I’d come to see it a few times a week at least,” Escobar told CBC News. It was a steady increase he noticed during the Biden administration, the result of what he sees as a long-broken immigration system. “We're families of immigrants and we're proud to say that, but we also believe that we have to have law and order,” said Escobar. “There wasn’t very much accountability … we did have open borders." Since Donald Trump was re-elected, all of that has changed. Escobar says there have been significantly fewer illegal crossings through his city. “It’s night and day, it really is,” he said. Escobar is a split voter — he supported Trump as the Republican candidate for president, but voted for Democrats in lower positions. One year later, he remains a satisfied Trump voter, one of several CBC News spoke with during a recent trip to southwest Texas. We travelled to Starr County, home to Roma and several other small border cities and towns, to get a better sense of how voters feel one year after the election. Trump flipped this county in 2024, becoming the first Republican presidential nominee to win here in 132 years. His promises to aggressively reform immigration and make life more affordable helped deliver his historic win, and illustrated some of the larger trends across the U.S. Trump’s slow build of new support among Latino voters paid off here — more than 90 per cent of the population in Starr County is Hispanic. This is a place where cultures have fused for generations, and family roots run deep. Under Joe Biden, inflation had cut deep in this county — one one of the poorest places to live in all the U.S. The median household income is around $38,000 a year. Good jobs can be hard to come by, even as the community grows. We found — one year later — Trump voters remain supportive of his agenda, especially when it comes to immigration, though there is lingering frustration about the high cost of living. Voters who backed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris have not warmed to Trump at all — and those we spoke with have little faith he will make their lives any better. According to CBP, the number of people apprehended along the southern border is at a 55-year low. On average, 279 people are now being stopped daily, down from more than 5,000 during stretches of the Biden administration. For the fiscal year ending in September, just over 237,000 people were apprehended, a significant drop from the prior four years, which averaged more than 1.8 million. And most of those fiscal 2025 apprehensions, according to CBP, happened during the final months of Biden’s term. Some residents of Starr County tell us they’ve also noticed a drop in drug traffickers entering their community. Jorge Bezan, 57, lives in a rural part of Starr County, and says he feared traffickers, saying they would drive erratically around his community. “With their loaded trucks, they come up here on the roads — they crash, crash into properties,” he said. “I’m afraid when my son has kids, or I have my grandchildren … someone is going to run them over.” Bezan is another split voter. He identifies as a Democrat and largely votes along party lines at the lower level, though he voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. He was born and raised in Starr County, is married with a 21-year-old son, and is a part of the Hispanic community. "Biden came in and everything went to hell," he said. Now, he says these episodes “stopped completely." And for that reason, he stands by his vote even though, he says, Trump's immigration rhetoric has "insulted" his people. Fewer people may be crossing into the U.S., but Trump’s immigration policies, and his mass deportation campaign are deeply troubling to his critics. Mindy Garza, a retired teacher who voted for Harris, is particularly concerned about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are behaving. “The way ICE is treating Hispanic people, just because they look a certain way … they’re being attacked,” she said, while having breakfast at the Texas Cafe in Rio Grande City. The family-owned restaurant, which opened in 1939 and is still in its original location, has served as a gathering spot for people to catch up, and sometimes talk politics. But in this polarized climate, it was hard to get people to open up. Becky Garza (no relation to Mindy) runs the restaurant, which was opened by her grandfather. She didn't want to talk about Trump, but was happy to discuss how challenging it is to be a small business owner right now. “Oh my god,” she said, sighing as as she tried to sum up her challenges. “The prices on things go up and down, up and down, every minute of the day." And more people, she says, are choosing to eat at home. “We’re looking at cutting hours again. It’s really been slow. The economy itself is just not helping us any at all." Diana Bacela is also struggling to make ends meet. She and her husband are both over 65, and have a limited income. She tries to restrict her grocery shopping — sticking to the necessities and rarely buying meat. Bacela does not expect Trump will make things better. “He doesn’t want to help the lower class, the middle class. He’s doing it for the upper class,” she said. Divisions continued largely along partisan lines at a nearby barbecue competition, where a dozen families or so set up smokers, tables and tasting stations. The few who would share their political opinions did not hold back. “He’s a piece of shit,” Ludivina Garcia, 80, said of Trump. “Poor people are suffering, old people like me." Garcia, who voted for Harris, thinks people who believed Trump's promises about the economy were fooled. “I can live on bread, potatoes and beans — but the kids can’t,” she said. Affordability is the only common ground between Trump and Harris voters. “He could do something better,” said Beto Garza (no relation to Mindy or Becky) a working father of one. Overall though, he stands by his vote for Trump. “I’m satisfied,” he said near his barbecue, offering samples of ribs to everyone who passed by. “I see changes." He doesn’t have any issue with Trump’s immigration or deportation plans, and says it hasn’t affected him or anyone he knows. All around this gathering, there are reminders of the new hardline policies. Nestled into the trees along the bank of the Rio Grande, a large military vehicle is positioned as a deterrent to anyone considering crossing. When a CBP boat passed by, some attendees waved hello. Sergio Ace Rosales, 75, a retired border patrol officer, is more than happy with the changes. “I love everything … chasing the illegal aliens back, because that was my job back in the old days,” he said, adding “there’s nothing I can say about the old man, he’s doing great." Whether things are better or worse now in Starr County depends on who you ask. Of the Trump supporters CBC News spoke with, no one had vote regret. They were willing to give the president time to implement his vision, in hope that all his promises would be realized. “I know that President Trump and his administration have a plan to improve our economy. Have we seen all the positive effects of it? No, we haven’t,” said Escobar, Roma's mayor. He thinks grocery prices need to come down more, but is pleased to see gas more affordable. “Locally we’ve seen some positive effects, but not to the extent that we’d hope for by now,” he said. Trump critics appear to have hardened their positions. None of the Harris voters have been pleasantly surprised by Trump’s actions or agenda. It suggests that political divisions continue to run deep in this community. And that the tensions of the 2024 vote remain raw.
