While protests continue to rise in major cities across the United States, residents along the Rio Grande go about their daily lives. The Sanchez sisters go to school, the Perez boys are studying on campus, the Villarreal couple is headed to work, and the Garcia grandparents rock their newborn nietos under an American flag that proudly waves over their front porch, in full view of Matamoros, Tamaulipas.

Many that live in the Rio Grande Valley have Spanish surnames. Their stereos blast corridos and country music. Their breakfast choices range from chorizo and egg tacos to a sausage McMuffin with egg. Some crossed the US-Mexican border at some point in their lives and settled in a small town by the river. Some can trace their family ties to the soil underneath their feet farther back than the existence of the borderline itself. Several dozens protested Trump’s victory in the presidential election on 11/9, quite a few don MAGA stickers on their bumpers.

What impression should be made of this? While protesters of various ethnicities up north are labeling white Americans racists for supporting Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Wall,” many Latinos along the border who will actually be affected first hand by the construction patiently await Trump’s next move, some with a newfound hope.

Why hope?

After living amongst one of the busiest smuggling hubs along the Mexican border for 18 years, I have my own reasons to believe Trump will bring the opposite of hope to the oppressed and forgotten of this country. And yet, to a certain extent, I can empathize with the Valley Texan who cheers for a wall across the border. I can’t speak for every Mexican-American, nor can I speak for the forgotten voices of those along the Rio Grande. However, my voice does represent the eyes of one native, who sees no victory for her people at the end of either divide.

I grew up next to a wall, a fence if you want to get technical. When I was 10 years old, George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act, which built a fence that followed the path of the Rio Grande but left a gap of no man’s land in between the wall and the river. Since the wall stood in between pieces of privately owned property, landowners needed access to go back and forth across the wall, leaving large gaps in between. There really was no way to create an “impenetrable” fence without taking into consideration the wildlife of the area and the water supply that would be cut off from farmers. Like it or not, “no man’s land” proved that Mexico and the United States meld so closely together that, in some spaces, they are even one.

And yet, after taking into consideration the additional forms of security, (heat sensors, cameras, drones, canines, and a massive number of border patrol agents), there were still immigrants burrowing tunnels, hiding in cars, climbing hundreds of makeshift ladders that are left along the fence, and swimming with their few possessions on their backs. Those that survived could occasionally be seen scurrying across neighborhoods, hiding as the border patrol chased behind. They would show up inside businesses, schools, and homes, usually not to steal or harm, but in a last attempt to stay.

I remember being picked up from school in the fifth grade, right before a group of close to 20 undocumented immigrants raced into my elementary school fleeing from la migra. Men, women, and children ran, all just as terrified as the students that were still waiting to be picked up by their parents on the school lawn.

I remember friends who got the dreaded call from a loved one attempting to cross the border illegally. Phone calls from the other side, threatening to deliver the severed heads of their aunts, uncles, grandparents, or children if they didn’t get their money. Because on that side, it’s all about money too.

I remember the stories of kidnappings that took place on the US side of the border. How someone could be driving home and then go missing, never to be heard from again, or held for ransom somewhere in Mexico.

The people on the border aren’t afraid that immigrants will take their jobs. Many fear for the safety of those on either side. Mexican-Americans are not looking to further segregate their families. For the sake of everyone, Valley citizens want a safe way through. They’re tired of corrupt politicians and law enforcement in their towns. They’re sick of drug money contaminating their cities. Their heart hurts for the hundreds of immigrants they witness struggling through inhumane conditions, with little more to offer than some food, water, and their own clothes. They’re desperate for a solution to a struggle that has found its way into their houses, not just on a television screen.

In moments of desperation, a wall to many sounds like hope. It sounds like security. It sounds like action that has long been withheld. But to me, it sounds like betrayal. Not only to our Mexican neighbors, but to those who reside in my hometown. I know for every supporter, there is another who stands in resistance. There is anger from residents who learned the ABC’s in elementary school next to their undocumented peers. There is empathy for the undocumented family that started their own business across the street from a Texan’s home. There is confusion from the Valley girl that grew up seeing undocumented immigrants cross the fence that was her backyard for years, only to hear that the new solution is a bigger wall…

Back in the 90’s, when I was just a newborn, “Operation Hold the Line,” “Operation Safeguard,” “Operation Gatekeeper,” and “Operation Rio Grande,” purposefully led immigrants through terrain considered too rugged and inhospitable to travel, believing few immigrants would attempt to pass even if it was the only way through. Only they kept coming. They died from dehydration and heat stroke, their bodies found across the desert. Years later they continue to die. They die drowning in the Rio Grande, they die paying Coyotes to take them across and being sold into the sex trade, they die and are sent back to their families slaughtered when their ransom can’t be supplied.

They come, despite knowing that there's a possibility that they will not only die a horrible death, but that their bodies will possibly never be found or identified and sent back to their families.

Natives of the area know the road to the US is not easy for the undocumented. It is not simply chosen over coming in “the right way.” A majority of the time, it is their only option. Unless you have qualified family in the US that is well off and can vouch for you, are fleeing from political persecution (this does not include fleeing from poverty), or hold an advance degree that sponsors you to work in the US, the chances of crossing legally are slim.

And yet, Trump and his supporters continue to think of this is as a one-dimensional problem. He believes these immigrants are physical objects that need to be kept on one side of a line drawn in the dirt. If the line is more clearly drawn, they will stay on their side. The thing is, these are not just physical creatures, they are human beings with souls that yearn for more, that are thinking of their children and their futures, that are thinking past a life where surviving the day is enough, where they would much rather die than continue to live the life they struggle in now.

Every summer, I’d turn on the five o'clock news, and since I was a little girl, I remember growing accustomed to hearing a new physical description from the news anchor of another immigrant that attempted to cross the Rio Grande, only to have their body found floating down the river or hidden in some landowner’s mesquite. Sometimes they were children. I’ll never forget the little 11-year-old boy's body found in the brush less than a mile from a US home, his brother's Chicago phone number written on his belt buckle. He was wearing "Angry Birds" jeans, black leather boots, and a white rosary around his neck.

Now I wonder how Trump figures that those physical obstacles such as mountains and "vicious" rivers will keep people from crossing if “the Devil’s Highway” never did. Tell me how those physical obstacles you believe that do not need a wall will deter the hungry faces of the people that have been stepped on for far too long.

Physically, there will always be a way to cross borders. And if this is his solution to the US immigration problem, there will still be people willing to do anything possible to cross that border. But go ahead and let him build a wall if he chooses. Let him use the cheap labor of the undocumented immigrants that live along that border to build it. Let him use the hard-earned money of US citizens to pay for the construction when Mexico continues to deny payment. Let people get tired and angry once again of empty promises that further affect the lives of those who live on “No man’s land.” Let him be replaced in 2020 and leave the country with a half built wall as a physical reminder that is evidently needed for us to finally learn from our mistakes.