Texas: Local Filmmakers Confront the Militarization of Their Hometown

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For more than two years, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been converting the small town of Eagle Pass into a militarized zone, lining the banks of the Rio Grande with razor wire, shipping containers, and National Guard Humvees. Most recently, he installed a 1,000-foot-long barrier of buoys in the river, to prevent asylum seekers from reaching the United States. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers have been instructed to push people back into the river, even if they are wounded by razor wire or suffering from heat exhaustion. And last week, the bodies of two people—a 20-year-old man from Honduras, and another person still unidentified—were found floating near the barrier.

They’re the kind of horrific headlines that Robie Flores, 36, and her younger brother Alex Flores, 31, could never have imagined for Eagle Pass, their hometown of fewer than 30,000 residents, located on the border two hours west of San Antonio.

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