D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February 2012
On the Border
Border Bonanza
Recovery comes to New Mexico's Bootheel, in the form of $13.5 million lavished on border security at the dot on the map called Antelope Wells.
by Tom Barry
Antelope Wells is the place to go if you want to see the Obama administration's economic stimulus package at work. Three years after the administration launched the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the stimulus funds committed to Hidalgo County are still working. But some may question whether the investment in this tiny, unincorporated dot on the map — where the population apparently totals two people living in trailers — is the best use of tax dollars.
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Entering Mexico from Antelope Wells, but there’s nothing but the port of entry on the other side either, and 37 miles to the nearest town of Los Janos. (Photos by Tom Barry) |
Despite the $12.2 million construction project to build a high-tech and well-fortified port-of-entry on the US-Mexico border here, over the past three years fewer people are passing through. Also underway is another ARRA project — the construction of the first "Forward Operating Base" of the Border Patrol in New Mexico.
(By the way, there are neither antelopes nor wells in Antelope Wells, which was named after a distant ranch.)
To see your tax dollars at work and in the process see a bit of New Mexico, including the Big and Little Hatchet Mountains (which gave the town of Hachita its name), driving from Silver City, you head south about 140 miles. You'll pass into Hidalgo County, back into Grant County, and then to the southern edge of Hidalgo County — and then on, if you dare, to the Sierra Occidental in Mexico.
On the way you will pass through Hachita, the southernmost "designated census location" in Grant County, and then pass nothing else for 45 more miles until you see the signs for the two stimulus projects at the border: the "ARRA Forward Operating Base" and the "ARRA Point of Entry."
Nonpartisan economists almost uniformly agree that Obama administration's economic stimulus package helped the nation from falling deeper into the "Great Recession." Many say, however, that much more federal spending — and more funding directly tied to employment creation and infrastructure improvement — is still needed to stimulate the nation out of its economic doldrums.
It's been three years since the administration launched ARRA, and many of us may have forgotten its specific goals, which, according to the government's Recovery.gov website, are: 1. Create new jobs and save existing ones; 2. Spur economic activity and invest in long-term growth; and 3. Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending.
Considering that the total ARRA stimulus package was $429 billion, the $17.5 million in ARRA assistance slated for Hidalgo County may not seem like much. Yet at a per capita level, the county — which has received $3,466 in per capita ARRA stimulus assistance — has made out much better than the national average ($1,400) or the New Mexico average ($1,826).
No doubt that Hidalgo County needs recovery and investment — with a steadily declining population (dropping about 18% from 2000 to 2010), the high poverty rate (27%), the closing of the Playas smelter, and the array of ghost towns all underscoring the need.
But ARRA may not have been the county's ticket to recovery.
Of the $17.5 million slated for the county, Antelope Wells has been the beneficiary of $13.5 million of this spending in the form of US Army Corps of Engineers projects for the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency of the Department of Homeland Security.
Roads are important in this sparsely populated county — about 1.5 residents per square mile — so it may make good economic sense that the second-largest ($2.2 million) recipient of ARRA funds for Hidalgo County was the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
Ranking third was Hidalgo Medical Services, which received $752,000. That grant included funding for the purchase of 30 computers and the training of staff to operate the computers.
Hachita isn't in Hidalgo County, but it may as well be given how far it is from the county seat in Silver City. I had hoped to get gas and a Diet Coke there before heading the 45 miles south through the beautiful nothingness of the Hachita Valley to Antelope Wells. I knew that Hachita still had a post office (although that's on the Postal Service's short list of planned closures), so assumed optimistically that there would also be other services.
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“Modernized” $12.2 million ARRA port of entry at Antelope Wells, including yellow detectors (two pairs) for weapons of mass destruction. |
At first glance, though, Hachita seems a ghost town.
The old bar, store and gas station are boarded up, and the lovely stone Catholic church, St. Catherine's, looks long-abandoned and is badly battered.
The rusting hulk of the town's original water tank stands on the town's north side. I did find one resident — a self-identified retired Marine named Mike — sitting in front of his trailer. Looking around 360 degrees at the high desert framed by beckoning mountain ranges, he explained that only a few dozen people remained in Hachita, many having left, according to Mike, because of the dubious water quality of the old privately built water system.
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