A rancher living near the southern border of Texas described what border life is like as the U.S. faces a flood of illegal migration from Mexico.
Stephanie Crisp-Canales appeared on Megyn Kelly’s Serious XM show, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” this week to discuss her personal experience amid the border crisis. Crisp-Canales called the flood of illegal immigrants an “invasion.”
“They are all over your property,” Crisp-Canales said. “These vehicles drive up and down our road – we live on a dead-end, little dirt road. All hours of the night, you see a vehicle going past, and you know there are people out there going to jump in those vehicles. It’s … you know, when you don’t know who is on your property at any given time, it is so unnerving. It’s an invasion.”
Crisp-Canales lives with her husband and two teenage daughters about two hours away from Del Rio, which has been experiencing a surge in illegal migration recently after social media posts spread claiming that the U.S. border near Del Rio was open for smugglers and others to cross, according to the U.S. Border Patrol. Crisp-Canales and her family routinely see illegal immigrants crossing across their ranch.
“You know, just a few days ago, there were seven of them one afternoon. We find remnants of them. A lot of them move at night because it’s cooler, so when you go through the pastures you can find their backpacks, their clothes, everything that they left behind when the smugglers picked them up,” Crisp-Canales said.
Crisp-Canales said that Border Patrol agents have warned them to treat each migrant as if he were armed because many are. Her family has taken precautions to avoid trouble with the migrants, such as limiting the time they spend outdoors and being “constantly vigilant.”
“We no longer walk around outside. If we leave our house, we have a gun on us,” Crisp-Canales said. “We are constantly vigilant, even if we are just going outside to feed the animals, whatever it may be. We are constantly watching our surroundings because they have been known to approach ranchers and take over their vehicles and take off.”
“Unless you’ve been down here and unless you live down here, you have no idea. I’m sure that, you know, when you call 911 somebody shows up relatively quickly for you. When we call 911, we’re on our own, especially right now all of the troopers are now down in Del Rio. We have just a handful of troopers left in our county, “she continued. “My husband came upon, there were seven illegal aliens on our property. He called for the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol told him ‘I can’t send anybody to you because all of our agents are in the neighboring county processing people.’”
Crisp-Canales said that she and her husband have taught both of their daughters, who are 16 and 18 years old, to use guns.
“We’ve had several discussions with them, and, of course, being raised on a ranch, they are well-versed with weapons, gun safety, things like that. And, you know, as a parent, you obviously will do anything to protect your children. You’d kill somebody. You will protect your children,” she said.
“When you have to have that talk with your kids, you know, that they may have to take somebody’s life to protect their own, that was a really hard conversation to have with them and I never want them to be faced with that, but the way it stands currently right now, we have to do that. We have to have those conversations because, like I said, nobody is going to come when we call for help unless it’s a neighboring rancher,” she added.