South Texas mayors’ alliance wants to dispel harmful border myths

EDINBURG, Texas (Border Report) — Several South Texas mayors met in the border town of Edinburg on Monday to strategize on ways to improve the economy and dispel harmful myths and rhetoric about the border region.

Mayors from Brownsville to San Antonio convened during this day-long session at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley Medical School.

A decade ago, the medical school didn’t exist, and leaders say this is proof of the strides in education and workforce development along the South Texas border. Unfortunately, they say, too many people in the rest of the country only view the border through a distorted immigration lens.

“This is a mega-region when you combine San Antonio to our area and the northern part of Mexico but we need to share that. We need to let everybody know what is here, the opportunities that are here and that’s what these meetings are about,” said Edinburg Mayor Ramiro Garza Jr., who chairs the alliance started in 2023.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg was the brainchild behind this initiative.

“When we work together as collaborative communities we can combine our strengths. We can leverage our political and economic force. And we can make sure the rest of the country knows the importance of South Texas,” Nirenberg said on Monday.

“We want to make sure we are telling the story of South Texas — the importance of it. The important strong friendship, binational partnership between the United States and Mexico along this border that serves to benefit the residents of each of our communities,” Nirenberg said.

Ten million people live within a 150-mile radius of Edinburg, including northern Mexico, Garza says. Reynosa, Mexico, just south of McAllen, has 1 million people alone.

“People are starting to realize that we have to work as a region and we have been. So we’re very fortunate that we have mayors from San Antonio, Brownsville, Weslaco, of course, McAllen, Edinburg, all working in unity to figure out what is going to be what is best for our community,” McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos told Border Report.

He said most of the discussions focused on expanding economic opportunities with northern Mexican cities and improving infrastructure, transportation and agriculture along the South Texas border.

“It all complements each other. It’s all a package, and we’re finally working,” Villalobos said.

This was the fourth meeting of the alliance.

On Monday, they received a private briefing by U.S. Border Patrol officials, which media could not attend.

Afterward, they said that the alliance collectively backs the U.S. Senate’s bipartisan border security bill and wants House Speaker Mike Johnson to take it to a floor vote.

“There’s other things to the border than just immigration. I know that’s a big challenge that we have. There’s a lot of opportunities. And I think part of our job is to ensure that everybody knows what that is,” Garza said.

“We are looking for bipartisan solutions to the issues that we face and the bipartisan border bill is one of those solutions that Congress can take to improve the situation on the border to also deal with issues that, frankly, Congresses past, and present, have walked away from for the last 40 years,” Nirenberg said.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.