(Center Square) – Depending on how you say “pecan” or “pookan”, a native person can easily tell if the person speaking is Texan. As the locals say, this tiny nutrient-packed nut, correctly pronounced ‘Pukkan’, is of great significance to Seongju.

Pecan trees were first discovered in what is now the southernmost tip of El Paso County, Texas. It is the only nut native to the United States and is the state tree of Texas. Pecans are also the health nut of Texas, and pecan pie is the state’s official pie.

Generations of family groups who have dedicated their lives to growing the state’s nuts in the El Paso Valley have had their lives, livelihoods, and lifestyles endangered by border traffic and crime since the start of the administration. said to have been exposed. President Joe Biden has started speaking.

“The only reason I sleep at night is the Trump Wall and the Second Amendment,” Jennifer Ivey, a pecan farmer’s wife and Republican precinct leader, in an exclusive interview during a visit to one of her family’s orchards. told Center Square. .

El Paso Valley’s pecan orchards thrive in one of the state’s most unique geographic regions. More than 50% of the pecan nuts grown in Texas are produced in this valley. 15 states produce pecan nuts. Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas produce the most.

Many of El Paso County’s pecan orchards are located about a mile from where the Trump Wall was built in 2020. The wall was built to replace a steel fence built in 2009 after Congress passed the Safe Fence Act of 2006, which received heavy Democratic support. . Through it, funds were allocated to build a “two-level reinforced fence” and “additional physical barriers” along a 700-mile stretch of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. In his speech in El Paso in 2011, then-President Barack Obama said that construction was “basically completedHowever, critics at the time argued that only 5% were completed.

And while it wasn’t a good enough deterrent to drug and human trafficking, locals say it was a strong deterrent during the Obama administration, but less under Trump. Now under the Biden administration, residents claim they are occupied.

In January 2021, President Trump’s new 131-mile border wall, which includes southern El Paso County, will be completed. It’s much taller and thicker than the 2009 fence, and has concrete underneath. After its completion, former Customs and Border Protection Director Mark Morgan released a photo comparing the two.

A completely new wall. pic.twitter.com/HwYi5AxVPf

— CBP Mark Morgan (@CBPMarkMorgan) January 5, 2021

In the center square of the historic border town of San Elizario, farmers’ fields were observed to loom very close to the walls, with residential areas hundreds of yards away.

This is the difference between the 2009 Obama administration fence and the 2020 Trump administration wall in El Paso County, south of San Elizario, Texas’ farming community. pic.twitter.com/iqwWu4nKli

— Bethany Blankley (@BethanyBlankley) June 22, 2023

Multigenerational families, descended from legal immigrants from multiple countries, began farming in the area over 100 years ago. But their way of life has changed forever as foreigners began crashing through fences put in place in 2009 and using rebars and ladders to climb over them.

Ivey described what it was like living in the area before the Trump Wall was built. “Imagine what it feels like to live on the streets, people walking all night, and a lot of little kids to protect,” she said. “Every morning I have to look over my shoulder and around me to protect my children, because I don’t know where the illegal immigrants are.”

More than a decade later, residents told Center Square that almost every night, people are encroaching on private property and walking near or past their homes. At a recent rally at a house in Fabence, one resident said that as illegal aliens moved north, they “left their passports on the ground and defecated in the fields all night.” I feel,” he said.

On one property, a farmer found 1,000 pounds of marijuana buried in the ditch of a pecan orchard. They called the sheriff’s deputy, and the sheriff’s deputy came and arrested all the suspected human traffickers who were in the United States illegally.

At another, a farmer found hundreds of pounds of drugs and called the sheriff, who seized it. The next day, an abandoned vehicle loaded with low-grade marijuana was left in front of the farmer’s house. There was a note on the dashboard that read: “By the time you are reading this, we are already moving ten times the amount of drugs into your farms.Don’t try to stop us.”

Those involved in drug trafficking and smuggling often hide large amounts of drugs in farmlands near the border. One group brings a stash and hides it. The farmers explained that a second group would come to pick it up and deliver it. They are “invaded by people who don’t want to interact with our way of life,” he said.

“This is America after all,” Mr. Ivey said. “I still want to believe things will get better.

“Without Trump’s wall, we would be completely overwhelmed.”